


A Love Like War

by Lyds and Ally (thunderandlightning)



Series: The College Years [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Past Allison Argent/Jackson Whittemore - Freeform, Past Allison Argent/Scott McCall, Past Lydia Martin/Jackson Whittemore, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-06-23 01:04:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15594810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunderandlightning/pseuds/Lyds%20and%20Ally
Summary: Stiles and Allison attend college together in Washington, D.C.





	1. Chapter 1

Stiles was grateful to Rafael McCall, which was something he never thought he would feel when it came to Scott’s father. But time he spent, erased from the world he knew, wasn’t something he could get back. Lucky for him, he hadn’t actually needed that final semester, and some quick talking from the adults in his life had convinced the principal not to factor any low grades into Stiles’ grade point average when he graduated. He smiled to himself as he put his diploma on his bookshelf, then carried the empty box out to the living room. “Hey, Ally? I’m taking a few more boxes to the dumpster.” That was another thing he was going to have to get used to. It hadn’t just been him on the receiving end of a favor from Agent McCall; Allison was sharing an apartment with him and attending the same program that he was. 

“Okay!” Allison called back. “Ooh, hey, wait, I’ve got two more that can go with you!” She hurried out of her room and down the hall toward him, as fast as her socked feet could carry her, then slid to a graceful stop in front of Stiles with a grin.

Stiles laughed and took the boxes from her. “Do you think we brought too much stuff?” He eyed the maze they had to navigate, to get to their door. “It’s a fire hazard, right?” 

Allison followed his gaze, looking around the room with a wince. “Um… maybe, yeah. But that - that shouldn’t be a problem once we, you know, figure out what to keep with us and what to put in storage, maybe?” She put her hands on her hips and exhaled heavily. “Why do we have so much crap?”

Stiles laughed. “Because we let Lydia decide what we needed to pack, and she insisted that we were going to need everything? That’s what I get for listening to my step-sister.” He held a hand up. “Don’t say anything about how I used to like her.” 

Allison grinned, baring her teeth a little. “I wasn’t going to say a word.” She promised him. “At least you never actually _dated_ your step-sibling.” The smile disappeared and her nose scrunched up. “I know we’ve both moved on, but it’s still really difficult to look at Scott sometimes, especially since the wedding.”

“Lydia’s kissed both of her step-siblings.” Stiles pointed out, smirking faintly. “And slept with the other one. So... family reunions are going to be really fucking weird.” 

Allison choked out a laugh, covering her eyes. “Yeah, that’s… I can’t top that.”

Stiles put his shoes back on and laughed a little to himself as he took the boxes down the stairs and out to the dumpster. He felt elated about being able to attend a program like this with someone he knew, but he also knew how competitive he and Allison could get, and he wondered if they would end up hating each other before the first week was over. It wasn’t something he wanted to happen, but he also used to think that werewolves weren’t real. He tossed the cardboard into the dumpster and tilted his head back as he looked up at the building, trying to pinpoint where their windows were. It was a little strange to him, really. He and Allison got along well enough, but for one reason or another, there was always a sort of six-degrees thing happening with them. It was never really ‘Stiles and Allison’ doing anything, it was always ‘Stiles and someone and maybe someone else, and _then_ Allison.’ He shook his head a little and went back up to their apartment. 

“Hey, what are we doing for food?” Allison poked her head out of the bathroom to look at him, raising both eyebrows. “You’re good at cooking, right? I’ll totally eat anything you make. Unless you don’t want to make anything, and then I am totally for Mexican food.”

Stiles laughed. “Uh... I wasn’t planning on making anything tonight. But I could. I just need to get groceries, first. Or we could just order something?” 

Allison stepped out of the bathroom, smiling crookedly at him before nudging him gently. “Like I said - I’m good with whatever you want to do.” She fidgeted. “Although now that I mentioned Mexican, I really do have a craving for carnitas. And tamales.”

“So we’ll look for Mexican food.” Stiles laughed. “And we’ll keep the paper menu thing if we like it, and we’ll make a note never to go there again, if we don’t.” He checked to make sure he had his keys and wallet, then nodded to her. “Come on.” 

Allison grabbed her small purse from where she’d initially thrown it across the couch and gestured at Stiles. “Lead the way.” She laughed.

Stiles walked over to the elevator, pressing the down button and glancing over at Allison. “Do you think Monday will be weird?” 

Allison leaned back against the wall and looked back at him. “I think it would be weird if it wasn’t weird, you know? Our lives at any given time…” She shrugged a shoulder. “It’s just what I’ve sort of come to expect.”

“I keep thinking about how you are.” Stiles muttered, smiling. “And how I am. We’re going to need to team up whenever we can, because if we don’t? We’re going to have a lot of awkward dinners here.” 

Allison nodded in agreement, laughing. “Just tell me what you need me to do, and I’ll do it. For being a matriarch, I’m surprisingly good at taking orders when I want to.”

“Yeah, it’s still weird to me that you’re considered the matriarch. That word doesn’t make me think of someone like you. Maybe some woman with a bun and a pinched face.” Stiles laughed. “We’re going to make everyone else feel curb-stomped, though.” 

Allison shook her head, grinning. “Hell yeah, we are. And hey, I’m not the one that chose that unfortunate title. You can blame my ancestors’ ancestors.”

“So, what should I call you, instead?” Stiles grinned back at Allison. “I’m guessing that ‘madame’ would get me smacked into the middle of next week.” 

Allison shrugged. “Well, it sounds better than ‘matriarch’ at least. Although it does give me BDSM vibes, a little.”

“For obvious reasons.” Stiles laughed, getting into the elevator and holding his hand over the door for her. “If it was me, I’d own it.” 

Allison gave him an appreciative grin and slid past him into the elevator. “Hah. Thanks. I think I will.” She raised an eyebrow and raised herself as high as she could go onto the tips of her toes, giving Stiles an imperious look. “You may now, and forevermore, call me Madame Argent. Is that understood?”

Stiles smirked. “Yes, ma’am.” He wondered if his mouth was going to get him into trouble, since he was pretty sure he hadn’t gone a month, since he’d learned how to talk, without that happening. 

Allison looked pleased, and then promptly snorted out a laugh. “Awesome. I look forward to making you bow to my will.”

Stiles saluted Allison. “I’m okay with that.” He yawned, then laughed as he walked out of the elevator. “Going for a walk is a good idea. I know I’ll fall asleep too early, otherwise.” 

Allison gave him a concerned look. “You’re not going to fall asleep _while_ walking, are you? Let’s at least get some food in you first.” She gave him a teasing look. “Do you need my support? Can you walk with me holding you up?”

Stiles laughed. “I’m not that bad, am I?” 

“No, you aren’t.” Allison replied, studying him with a crooked grin. “But I’d like to take precautions, and I definitely don’t want to see my friend sprawled out in the middle of the sidewalk, snoring.”

“I can fall asleep anywhere, but that doesn’t mean I will.” Stiles shrugged. He eyed his phone, then looked back up at her. “There’s a Mexican place... if we walk down Idaho to Massachusetts, there’s a bus that we can take most of the way. Unless you want to settle for something like Qdoba. Uh, also a Tex-Mex place about three blocks from here. I don’t know what you mean by Mexican.” 

Allison listened intently to him, and then smiled faintly. “I mean, like, genuine Mexican, like… mariachi, sombreros, waiters plugging you with margaritas followed by some spicy as hell salsa made by the devil’s own hand, that sort of thing. Qdoba tries, but they aren’t what I want right now.”

Stiles nodded. “Then Mission is where we want to go. If it turns out to not be what we hoped for, we’ll go somewhere else next time.” 

“I think I have a notebook buried somewhere under all of the crap on the floor of my room.” Allison told him. “As soon as I find it, I’ll tear out a page, put it on the fridge and note whether the place is worth it or not.”

“We might as well get a notebook with alphabetical listings on it and mark whether a place sucks or not. So we don’t forget.” Stiles murmured. “Because four years from now, we might be thinking of going back to a place that we forgot gave us food poisoning.” 

“Oh, god.” Allison made a face and nodded. “Yeah, that sounds good. Smart.” She grinned up at him. “You’re so smart.”

“I’ll accept that compliment.” Stiles smiled. “But I’ll also remind you that it’s mostly that I’m a pessimistic bastard and I expect to have a lot of listings for places I never want to go back to.” 

“That’s okay, because then when we look at the list, you’ll remember that a certain Chinese food place made me sick when we inevitably go looking for cheap and fast.” Allison told him. “So… not really knocking the pessimism right now.”

“Should we talk while we take the bus and eat?” Stiles suggested. “I mean, besides the obvious conversation stuff. Roommate things. House rules.” 

“That sounds doable, yeah.” Allison agreed. “House rules are a definite thing we need to go over, so I don’t mind if we go over it while eating.”

Stiles opened up a note file on his phone and glanced up at her, eyeing traffic as he watched for the bus. “Rule one, studying before partying.” He made a face. “It sounds like I’m going to be the most boring person alive, but I really don’t want my grades to slip, while we’re out here. If I get in the habit of blowing off school for fun, I’ll just keep doing it.” 

Allison rubbed her chin, her own eyes darting around as she waited for the bus. “I think that’s agreeable. I don’t want to flunk out because I was too busy being wild. I… kind of think that I’ve been more wild than I needed to be in the past?” She looked up at Stiles. “What about this: on the weekend, when they assign homework - because you and I both know they will, whatever kind it might be - we use our time on Friday to work on it. Absolutely not partying on Friday. And… no partying on Sunday, too, because I’m not going to class with a hangover from the night before.” She furrowed her brows. “So… that leaves Saturday for partying. Unless there’s a test.”

Stiles nodded, making Allison’s terms an addendum to the rule he’d already written down. “That works for me. And we won’t do takeout more than twice a week. That can be rule two. Cooking at home makes more sense. That could even be a thing we do on Sundays? Cook for the week and then heat up whatever we need to, each night.” 

Allison grinned. “As long as you teach me so that I know what I’m doing and don’t accidentally burn our home down, I’m good with that.”

“How many rules do we need?” Stiles murmured. “This seems more like a schedule, at this point. Which I’m fine with. Wanna make Sunday laundry day, while we’re at it?” 

“Maybe a list of ten rules?” Allison suggested. “I don’t think we need to go too far overboard with those, just a standard set of rules for the two of us, so we can respect each others’ boundaries and whatever. Like, I promise you right now, I will _never_ sexile you. I absolutely will not do that to you, ever. If I find someone to date or mess around with, I’ll ask if we can chill at their place or something.” She paused. “Also, Sunday as laundry day sounds good to me.”

Stiles smiled. “You won’t have to worry about me causing that kind of problem, either. At most, just... uh, knock before you walk into the bathroom or my room? I mean, I’ll be alone, but... yeah.” 

Allison’s lips twitched, and she nodded. “Stiles, we’re officially college students now. I really doubt you’re going to be alone for long. But okay.”

“I’m not holding my breath.” Stiles shook his head. 

“I think you’ll be surprised.” Allison murmured, shrugging before adding bluntly, “You got hot. Like, really hot.”

Stiles laughed, blushing. “Thanks.” 

Allison laughed, too. “No problem. It’s the truth, though. If someone doesn’t proposition you the first day on campus, I’m going to be amazed. And wonder if everyone here is blind.”

“That would be interesting.” Stiles grinned. He wasn’t sure what Allison’s angle was, why she was complimenting him when she hadn’t seemed to care one way or the other what he did or how he looked. He decided that it must have been some kind of extra effort to get herself out of cooking dinner, and he brushed it aside. 

Allison shoved her hands in her pockets, and then promptly yanked one out of her pocket again to pat Stiles repeatedly on the shoulder. “Bus!’ She blurted, trying to hide her embarrassment. She hadn’t meant to get so adamant about her view on Stiles’ looks. Not that she didn’t mean every word, but Stiles was a friend - and more than that, her ex-boyfriend’s best friend. There were some lines that weren’t meant to be crossed.

Stiles laughed. “I see it.” He nodded, putting his phone into his pocket and boarding the bus. He used his pass to pay for himself, then sat down in a seat and saved the one beside him for Allison, while he waited for her to sit with him. He yawned again and decided to get a cup of coffee with dinner, if it was an option. 

“Quit it.” Allison whined quietly, yawning right after him as she sat down beside him. Her hand settled over her mouth, and she let out a quiet laugh. “If you make me too tired to eat, I’ll get sulky.” She teased him.

“Worst case, we’ll take our food to go and eat it on the way home.” Stiles smiled. “So... rule one is only partying on Saturday night. Rule two is cooking five days a week. Rule three is laundry day is Sunday. Rule four is knock before you open a door. I think that’s enough for now? We can add more later.” 

“Okay.” Allison murmured, leaning back in her seat. Her stomach growled, and she patted it lightly, almost fondly. “This shouldn’t be such a huge change for me, but… I mean, I guess of course it is, right? Moving around a lot as a kid, I should’ve been prepared for this, but when I moved around before, I had my parents. Now it’s just me and you, on our own.”

“Well, yeah.” Stiles agreed. “You’re used to different places, though. I’ve only ever lived in Beacon Hills. I was scared out of my mind at the idea of being on my own. Knowing you were coming with me made it a lot easier. That’s why I’m determined to not piss you off, because having to do everything by myself - I don’t think I can.” He admitted. 

Allison lightly bumped her shoulder against his, folding her hands together in her lap. “I owe you a lot, Stiles.” She told him. “I’m beyond grateful that you’re here with me, too. I definitely wouldn’t let you do everything by yourself.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ordinarily, Ally and I do a lot of research before we write a story, to make it more realistic. This time, we decided to ignore how FBI training actually works. Instead of waiting until they're twenty-five and already have a bachelor's degree (which is how things are supposed to go), Stiles and Allison get to attend four to eight years of specialized college courses. Or something like that, anyway.
> 
> * * *

On Monday morning, Stiles felt like he was practically blessed by some god as he sat down in class, beside Allison. They had been early enough to get good seats, but not so early that he felt idiotic, and they had even managed to find time to get coffee on the way. It was so different from what he was used to, having to run for his life - or the sake of having a free afternoon instead of detention - that he was almost afraid to be elated. 

“This is so weird.” Allison said softly, taking a deep breath and slowly trying to relax. She looked over at Stiles. “It’s weird, right?”

“So freaking weird.” Stiles agreed, grinning. “We’re too used to scary, murderous situations. This is normal chaos.” 

“I don’t know how to feel about this.” Allison laughed. “I’m almost expecting something off-putting to happen, just so that we get back into our comfort zone. I’m going to be on edge for ages.”

Stiles laughed. “Maybe we can sneak a look at old case files and try to figure out which ones can be attributed to our furry friends? Oh god. Does this make us Mulder and Scully? Should I be scared for our sanity?” 

Allison raised one eyebrow, looking entertained. “Probably, god, I hope not, and always.” She grimaced. “God, I hope we don’t start seeing aliens.”

“Can’t be much worse than eyebrow-less werewolves.” Stiles snorted. He sat up straight when some guy in a suit walked in, carrying a briefcase. Stiles rubbed his hands together, giving Allison a triumphant smile. “We’ve got this.” 

Allison laughed quietly, putting a hand over her face for a second before looking back up toward the front of the room and nodding. “We’ve got this.” She agreed. “I hope.”

“Congratulations, children.” The instructor smirked at the students in front of him. “You’re all here because someone decided you belonged. Wherever you’re sitting, you’re with your partner. As long as there are two of you at a table.” He gestured to where someone was sitting at a table by themselves in the front, then crooked a finger at someone sitting alone at a back table. “Come on, don’t be shy, there’s no time for that. You’re going to get to know each other really well over the next few months.” 

Allison blinked, and then glanced at Stiles, then whispered, keeping her voice as low as humanly possible, “I didn’t realize we were back in elementary school, did you?”

Stiles smiled, glancing at the guy in the front of the room before he leaned toward her to whisper back, “I think it’s some kind of scare tactic, that’s all. Like he figures if he makes us squirm enough, someone will crack. My dad and all of his deputies said they went through this crap for police training, and-” 

“Mr.... Stilinski. I guess you already know everything there is to know about how to work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation? Maybe you don’t actually need this program.” Agent Calloway smirked. 

“I know a trap when one’s being set up for me.” Stiles countered. “I had the world’s crankiest science teacher, sophomore year of high school. So yeah, I was talking.” He admitted. “But I assumed that all of us being adults meant that we’re expected to multi-task and there’s also the fact that you weren’t actually speaking at the time, so it’s not like I missed anything.” Even as the words left his mouth, Stiles knew he had crossed a line and was probably about to be kicked out of the program. But the agent surprised him, instead. 

“Close your eyes. All of you.” The agent demanded. 

Stiles sighed, but he complied with the request, wondering if he was about to get the crap knocked out of him and not have any witnesses to help him out, after the fact. 

“Ms. Argent, what color shirt is Mr. Stilinski wearing? Without opening your eyes, answer the question, please.” 

Allison’s eyebrows drew together in confusion, and she shook her head slightly. “It… depends on which shirt you’re referring to.” She murmured. “Red and black plaid for one. White for the other.”

“What brand of shoes does he have on?” Their trainer demanded next. 

Allison looked confused, still, but it was beginning to be tinged with annoyance. “His Converse.”

“Nice to see that someone is paying attention.” Calloway smiled, even though nobody else could see it. “Mr. Stilinski. Without opening your eyes, describe your partner’s shirt and her shoes.” 

“Black.” Stiles remarked. “I don’t really pay attention to labels, when it comes to that sort of thing. I just know that she prefers to wear black, and that’s what she’s wearing today.” 

“Sneakers or pumps?” Calloway asked, making sure the rest of his trainees could hear him. 

“Boots.” Stiles retorted. “She wouldn’t wear dress shoes for something like this.” 

“Okay... what about the people at the table behind you?” Calloway asked next. “What are they wearing?” 

“Clothes?” Stiles’ lips twitched when he heard laughter around him. “Listen, I get what you’re trying to do, making me feel like I’m inadequate because I didn’t catalogue everyone else’s attire on day one and somebody might be dangerous. But we all came in through the same metal detector and we all had to go through a lot of vetting to get the chance to even do that. So really, what you’re implying by saying I’m not good enough to know if someone in here is dangerous is... that neither are your co-workers and supervisors.” He opened his eyes. “But if it’ll make you feel better, I can start keeping track of who uses Head and Shoulders and who doesn’t.” 

Allison turned her head away and thrust her fist over her mouth so that she wouldn’t be seen laughing - it wouldn’t change the instructor's suspicions of her laughing, but at least she thought she was making an effort to not be heard. Her free hand fumbled out blindly and grabbed Stiles’ arm at the wrist, giving him a little squeeze of support. 

“Point made.” Calloway remarked, clearing his throat. He was more than a little pissed off that someone who was supposed to be green had gotten the better of him, but he also felt a little proud about it. In four years, more than half of the twenty kids - and he did think of them as kids, they were all eighteen or nineteen to his thirty years alive, and hadn’t seen half of the things he had - would either have withdrawn or be asked to leave the program. He expected Stilinski and Argent to make it to graduation. He wasn’t sure about the other eighteen, but they hadn’t done anything to impress him, yet. “Three years ago... god, open your eyes, you bunch of sheep. Three years ago, Scientific American published an article about the fact that eyewitness testimony isn’t valid evidence. If you asked five people to describe someone’s hair color, you could get five different answers, and at least one of those answers would be entirely incorrect. Not wrong, not a lie, just someone’s memory being faulty. Or maybe they’re colorblind. Maybe it’s both. Details are important, sure. But it’s also important to know that they’re not our best shot at convicting someone of a crime. I didn’t bother asking the rest of you what color shirt or shoes everyone else was wearing, mostly because I don’t want to be here all day. But I guarantee that more than half of you would be wrong. I might not care what shampoo someone uses, but I hope they do use something. Stay alert. And, uh, stay flake-free.” Calloway didn’t bother looking at Stilinski or Argent as he spoke, but the appreciative snort was enough to let him know that his words were sinking in. 

Allison dropped her head to the table, her shoulders shaking as she laughed quietly. She’d been prepared to outright hate Calloway the minute he’d attempted to start dressing down Stiles out of loyalty toward her friend, but the instructor had surprised her. She hoped that he would grow to be someone she’d genuinely respect and like through the year.

***

Stiles started water boiling in a pan and logged into Skype from the tablet on the island in the kitchen. Their first day of classes had gone really well, and Calloway’s class seemed to be the more active one. The other instructors preferred book work and written assignments, which didn’t bother Stiles. But he felt like those agents weren’t even trying to get to know the people they were teaching, and he thought that was the entire point of their jobs. Human interaction, observation and assessments were a big deal in profiling, which was what he wanted to do more than anything else. 

“Hi, Dad!” Allison called, peering around Stiles at the camera as her father’s face came up. “Hey, Melissa, and John, and Natalie!”

Stiles waved, grinning as he turned back to the stove, browning hamburger meat for the spaghetti he was going to make for dinner. He turned toward the camera again a moment later. “Our first day went really well. It almost didn’t. I thought one of our teachers was going to be a dick. But he’s not.” 

“What did he do?” John asked curiously. “To make you change your mind?”

Allison shrugged, smiling faintly. “He’s really funny. Like, surprisingly funny.”

“How funny?” Chris asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“He was trying to make a point and it backfired on him, and instead of kicking me out of class like I kind of thought he might, he kind of admitted that he screwed up.” Stiles smiled. “I was talking to Allison and apparently that was a horrible thing to do, so he told all of us to close our eyes and used it as a chance to make me seem incapable of being good at what I want to do, just because I don’t know what brand of shoes Allison wears. It was a whole thing.” He gestured vaguely. “And I pointed out that if he’s trying to insinuate that someone in our class is a criminal, that means that the FBI didn’t do a good enough job with background checks and interviews. I said I’d keep track of who had dandruff, though. If that became a necessary thing.” 

John let out a bark of laughter. “Excellent execution, son.” He nodded in approval, grinning. 

Allison beamed over at Stiles. “He had the whole class in stitches, it was brilliant. Whatever Calloway expected of him, he got more than he bargained for.”

“Well, what about you?” Chris asked. “Did he bother you at all?”

“At first.” Allison nodded. “He asked me what Stiles was wearing and his brand of shoes, and I kept thinking he was trying to trick me? And then he threw the same questions at Stiles and I realized what he was actually doing. I kind of like him. I mean, I _really_ enjoyed watching him get knocked down a few notches, but I do like him.”

“Everyone else just wants us to write essays and answer textbook questions.” Stiles added. “So we’re looking at an entire semester of that.” 

“I’d been kind of hoping that we’d start getting our hands dirty right away.” Allison admitted, looking disappointed. She sighed. “But, I mean… it _is_ a first year class, so I guess that makes sense. I just don’t want to be stuck drowning in paperwork all year. I want to be active.”

“You’ve gotta have patience, sweetheart.” Chris told her gently. 

John was nodding. “It might seem like it’ll take some time, but you’ll get into the thick of it, eventually.”

“How are things going, out there?” Stiles glanced over his shoulder at the stove, then looked back at his dad. 

“About as well as you can imagine.” John replied, and then paused. “Well, if you dial your particular imagination back by about eighty percent.”

Melissa snorted. “What he means is, it’s boring as hell here without you kids. No monsters of the week flouncing into town and scaring the locals.”

“That’s not a bad thing!” Allison protested. “It’s good that you’re living boring lives now!”

Stiles laughed. “Yeah, we expect that to continue. Do absolutely nothing whenever possible.” 

“Well, don’t twist our arms.” Melissa smirked at him, shaking her head.

Something about Melissa’s earlier remark was starting to bother Stiles, but he decided to wait until the end of the call to talk to Allison about it. He eyed their dinner again, then gave the older adults an apologetic look. “We need to go, so we can eat. But we’ll check back in with you in a few more days.” 

“Alright, kid.” John murmured, smiling at his son. “Proud of you. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Allison waved at her father. “Bye, Daddy. Bye, guys.”

Chris lifted his own hand. “Bye, sweetie. Bye, Stiles, have a good dinner.”

“We will.” Stiles nodded. He ended the call, then turned toward Allison. “We haven’t even been gone a whole week, I know. But what if everything is calm because we’re not there? What if we’re the catalysts?” 

Allison looked up at him, frowning. “You mean… you think the only reason Beacon Hills would be peaceful is because we’re not there to draw the creepy crowd to it?” She went a little pale. “Oh, hell. What if that means we drag them to us now? Here?”

“What if it’s not us, though?” Stiles pointed out. “None of this shit even happened until Derek and Laura came back to Beacon Hills. It pretty much starts and ends with the Hales.” 

Allison furrowed her brows together. “Well… I mean, technically it started before that, with Kira’s mom screwing around.” She pointed out. Chewing on her lower lip for a moment, she added, “I don’t know if I believe that the Hales are the alpha and omega - pardon the unintentional pun - of everything bad that happens in Beacon Hills, though. I l know how that sounds, coming from me. I just… it was peaceful in Beacon Hills before, right? Before anything, everything. I mean, they’ve got a freaking Wikipedia page dedicated to their family settling in Beacon Hills in the eighteen hundreds, and it was peaceful.”

“So I guess we just wait and see if any of us end up being surrounded by werewolves and other assorted creatures.” Stiles mused. “That would be a good indication. Of what, I don’t know yet.” 

“That we’re jinxed or not?” Allison suggested, snorting. She shook her head. “Maybe this is a good thing, after all. I mean… if we’re the supernatural catnip, then that means the supernatural crap leaves our families alone, right?”

“Yeah. But I don’t know if I like the idea of being catnip.” Stiles muttered. He paused, thinking as he stirred the noodles around in the pan. “Then again, nobody supernatural ever tried to kill me. It was always someone human who had that in mind.” 

Allison twitched in place a little, a grimace crossing her face at the recollection of the few humans who had indeed attempted to harm Stiles. She looked away when she recalled her own family’s involvement in it. “Right.” She mumbled. “Well… if it means Dad and Mel are safe, and your dad and Natalie are safe, I’ll… throw myself at the cat.”

Stiles laughed. “This metaphor got away from us, I think. Do you want to set the table?” 

Allison huffed out a laugh of her own and nodded. “Yeah, I can do that.” She murmured, standing up and reaching for the plates in the cabinet. “Do you remember if we put the parmesan in the fridge or in the other cabinet?” She asked, turning to look at him. “I’ve had your pasta before, and it’s amazing but, well… I want cheese.”

“It should be in the cabinet.” Stiles smiled. 

Allison grinned at him brightly, turning and reaching into another cabinet. She searched for a moment, hoisting herself up onto the tips of her toes, before she exclaimed softly and set the container down on the table with a thump. “We’re a go for dinner.”


	3. Chapter 3

The days started to seem like they were going faster, once their first week of college was over. In what seemed like no time at all, a month had passed and Stiles was interested in making plans for Halloween with their classmates, except that he had no idea how to ask that sort of thing. “Okay, so this is a problem.” He muttered, sitting back in his chair during lunch. “Remember how I went to the dance with Lydia because you arranged it, and then that time that I made out with Caitlyn because she asked me, and that time that Heather kissed me with no warning? I’m just going to get to the point. I don’t know how to do anything. Socially. The earliest interaction I had with Scott involved me feeling like my bladder was going to explode and being too shy to tell the teacher that I had to pee, so I just went in the sandbox at preschool. Because that’s what cats do. I don’t know, I was three. Pissed all over Scott’s sand castle and somehow, he forgave me and then I never actually made any other friends.” 

Allison couldn’t help the fond grin that crossed her face. “So… you want me to arrange something for you?” She asked carefully. “Because I can, if that’s what you’re wanting.”

“I mean, you could.” Stiles nodded. “I won’t object to that. I just mean that like... I’m not saying that you and I aren’t friends, it’s just that we’re sort of not?” He blinked. “I mean, there was never a conscious decision from either of us to be friends. There was Scott and Lydia and lots of death and near-death, and that kind of led to this.” 

Allison blinked slowly. “Oh. Well… for clarification purposes, do you want to make a conscious decision to be friends?”

Stiles hesitated. “Um. I mean, if you want to? Because I think you’ve kind of got more of a vote, in that respect. If you don’t want to be friends with me, it’s not like I can force you to do that.” 

“Stiles…” Allison started, looking a little embarrassed. “I want to be friends with you. I… kind of thought the opposite of what you’re saying; that we were already friends. Or I was hoping we were? I mean, I get it, I understand if that’s not… if I’m being, you know, presumptuous or whatever. I… well, I wanted to be your friend because of Scott, at first - you know, make friends with his friends?” She cleared her throat. “After that, I wanted to be your friend because you’re a good person to know. You’re… I mean, I just…” She trailed off, her cheeks reddening. 

“Sorry.” Stiles blurted. “I wasn’t trying to make things awkward. I think it’s just my natural talent.” He snorted. “I like the idea of us being friends, and not just a couple of people who saved themselves some trouble of finding a roommate on craigslist.” 

Allison smiled crookedly. “I mean, I’m not going to deny that knowing you’re my friend _and_ the man that saved me from rooming with a potential pervert-slash-nosebreather-slash-massive creep is kind of huge.” She murmured.

Stiles laughed. “Yeah, well, you’re the reason I’m not stuck with one of those girls who laughs like a hyena.” 

“I snort when I laugh.” Allison warned. “Just because you haven’t heard it yet doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. You might miss the laughing hyenas.” She giggled. 

Stiles shook his head. “I doubt it.” He grinned at her. “Okay, so... do we want to invite people over to watch movies on Halloween?” 

Allison practically vibrated in her seat. “Oh my god, yes.” She blurted. 

Stiles nodded. “Great. So. How do we do that? And who are we asking?” 

Allison chewed on her lower lip thoughtfully. “We could pin something up in the commons?” She suggested. “Just make a little poster or something extolling the virtues of a movie night for Halloween with a selection of specific horror movies, and tell people to bring their own snacks and blankets or whatever?”

“I don’t know. Do we really want just anyone to show up?” Stiles looked around the cafeteria. “The girl that sits in front of us picks her nose.” 

“Ew.” Allison muttered, her nose scrunching up. “Okay, point. So… what’s your suggestion, then? What do you think we should do?” She laughed. “You’ve gotta remember, I’m not the one that approached Lydia, she approached me. So did Scott. I was perfectly content to be miserable and play the new girl without looking or talking to anyone.”

“So we both suck at this.” Stiles laughed. “Okay. Let’s just invite everyone in Calloway’s class and if Booger Girl shows up... I guess we could do popcorn in buckets? Like, Halloween trick-or-treat buckets? It’ll look cute and we won’t have to worry about nasty surprises because she can take that home.” 

Allison crossed her arms over her head, resting her cheek against the table as she laughed. “Stop talking about boogers, please,” she begged, breathless. “The trick-or-treat buckets idea is adorable and I love it.” She nodded, tilting her head sideways and peering up at him. 

Stiles nodded back. “Great, so we’ll do that, then.” He murmured, studying her. 

Allison sat up a little, looking back at him self-consciously. “What is it?” She asked. “Have I got something on my face?”

“No, I’m just glad we’re officially friends.” Stiles smiled. “But it would’ve been so easy for me to tell you that you had a booger.” 

“I hate you.” Allison snorted, subconsciously reaching up and rubbing at her nose. Her face softened into a smile. “But I’m glad we’re officially friends, too.”

“Do you think Lydia could make it, if we invited her?” Stiles mused. “Or is this one of those things where we have to invite her, even knowing that she can’t make it, just to be nice? She’s such a pain in the ass about this sort of thing.” 

“I’d love the thought of her being here.” Allison admitted, laughing quietly. “I’d invite her regardless of if she could make it, personally. So… I mean, I suppose the answer is yes either way?”

“Okay.” Stiles smiled. “Then we’ll invite her and the class, and I expect most of them to not actually show up.” 

Allison nodded, and then smiled uncertainly. “I mean… we could always Skype with her and watch the movies that way?” She suggested. “If she doesn’t make it. Oddly enough, I don’t really mind if most of the class doesn’t show.” She shrugged. “I know I should, but like… everyone important to me is everywhere else that isn’t here with us. Besides you.”

Stiles nodded back at her again. “Yeah, I feel like that, too.” 

“So… we’re in agreement, then.” Allison murmured, gazing at him. “That’s good.”

Stiles had intended to say something else, but he forgot what it was, and he was still trying to remember when one of their classmates - luckily, not Booger Girl - approached them to mention that Calloway was calling some kind of meeting, and everyone was expected to attend. 

Allison sat up, and then looked at Stiles curiously. “Well… let's go, then.” She murmured, standing up. She dragged her bag over her shoulder, giving Stiles an expectant look. 

Stiles stood up, walking toward the elevator with Allison. “What do you think this is about? Emergency meetings are never a good thing.” 

Allison grimaced. “I’m not sure. It’s possible he's going on medical leave? Maybe he has a family emergency?”

“I don’t know. That sounds like something that we’d just get a sub for, and not really need a meeting for it.” Stiles frowned. He got into the elevator with Allison, reaching out to tug her closer to him when the elevator started to get crowded with their classmates. 

Allison made a face when the other classmates continued pressing toward them, and she turned toward Stiles, huddling closer and winding her arm around him. “Jesus.”

“Guys, I’m pretty sure we don’t need this many - okay.” Stiles sighed, tilting his head back and praying that nobody burped or farted before the doors opened again. He glanced at Allison. “We’ve got to learn to take the stairs.” 

“Next time.” Allison sighed. Louder, she said, “You guys do realize that there is a weight capacity on this thing and that we are probably very dangerously close to tipping it, right?”

Stiles rolled his eyes when everyone else ignored Allison. “I give up. It makes me a little bit sad that this is our competition.” 

“Competition?” One of the guys blurted. “It’s a class!” 

“It’s a class where most of us are expected to give up and drop out.” Stiles countered. “There’s a reason this isn’t as easy to get into as some kind of McJob.” 

Allison laughed quietly, her shoulders shaking. “I’m honestly surprised Calloway didn’t do one of those, ‘look to your left, look to your right, both those people will be gone by week blah blah blah.’” She added, nodding. 

“I would have had to protest.” Stiles grinned. The elevator doors opened and he watched as people started exiting, giving Allison a relieved look when they finally had space to breathe. He walked out before her, putting a hand over the doors to make sure she could get out without the doors giving her trouble. It was his least favorite thing about elevators. 

“Thank you.” Allison murmured, giving his arm a small squeeze and smiling. She stepped past him, and then waited until the elevator closed before she turned to face the classroom so that they could walk side by side. 

“And for once, they’re not the first ones here.” Calloway remarked. “Why are you two later than usual?” 

Stiles smirked, shaking his head. “We were the first ones in the elevator, but everyone else decided they couldn’t wait another two minutes to get here. So we were the last ones _off_ of the elevator.” 

Allison smiled crookedly. “I feel very squished.” She informed him, nodding. 

“Well, I hope that didn’t affect your ability to think.” Calloway smiled back at Allison. “This wasn’t really a spontaneous thing. Not for us, anyway.” He gestured to the other instructors. “But there are going to be a lot of times when you’re on your toes, and this is one of them.” He grabbed a stack of folders and set one down at each table. “Don’t open these yet. It’s a special case and you have until October thirty-first at eleven fifty-nine p.m. to submit your solution. Whether that’s a typed report or an email, that’s up to you and your partner. I would say ‘no pressure,’ but the fact is this: you’ve been here a month and things have been easy. That’s going to stop. If you get your answer wrong, you’re out. If you’re late, that counts as a wrong answer. If it’s eleven fifty-eight, your phone is dead and your power is out, you’d better grow some wings and borrow somebody else’s phone, to leave me a voicemail. I’m sure as hell not answering.” 

Allison, startled, rescued out to grab Stiles’ arm again. “Oh my god. It’s a case.” She whispered. “First case!”

Stiles grinned back at her, then winked. “We’ve got this.” He nodded. When the instructors said to open the files, he reached for the folder and set the pictures aside, for Allison to look at, while he read over the documents. He handed each one to her as soon as he was done, but he started writing down notes as soon as he felt like he needed to. The case was made up, and it was obvious, based on the names. But he was excited, anyway. ‘Chupacabra.’ He wrote it on his notepad and slid it toward Allison, watching her reaction. 

Allison’s eyebrows raised, and she glanced at her partner. “God, you’re fast.” She muttered, laughing quietly. “You think so?”

Stiles pointed to the document that listed Puerto Rico as the location, then looked through the papers until he found one report about a bunch of sheep dying mysteriously. He smiled, nodding to her and raising his hand. “So, that report. Do you have a font preference?” 

Calloway snorted. “I’ll tell you what. If the two of you can tell me right now what we’re dealing with, I’ll give you an actual case to work on.” 

Stiles grinned. “Chupacabra.” He fought back a laugh as he heard other people swear and drop their folders. 

Allison tried to hold in a squeal but couldn’t quite manage. It eked out as a squeak, and her hand flailed as she grabbed Stiles again, well aware that her reaction wasn’t the least bit professional and uncaring of it. 

Stiles put his hand over hers, glancing around. 

“I’ll have something for you two, tomorrow.” Calloway shook his head and laughed. “Seriously, where did you guys come from?” 

“Our apartment.” Stiles shrugged one shoulder. 

“California?” Allison added, deliberately cocking her head to the side to affect the stereotypical Valley Girl expression, complete with vapid smile. 

Calloway grinned back at Allison, then looked up at the rest of the students. “Okay, since that was kind of ruined, I’ll have something else for you guys, tomorrow. You’re dismissed for the day. You probably don’t want to be late, tomorrow morning.” He pointed at Stiles and Allison. “You two stay here.” 

“Sir, yes, sir.” Allison murmured, resisting the urge to salute her instructor. She sat back in her chair as the other students began to leave, alternating between glancing at them, glancing at Calloway, and grinning at Stiles.

Stiles felt torn between being excited about getting a real case to work on, and the idea that someone had committed a crime bad enough to have the FBI’s attention, and now he and Allison were going to be tasked with resolving it, if not just solving it. 

“It’s not anything exciting.” Calloway remarked, sitting down on the desk in front of his favorite students. “Identity fraud. We’re pretty sure there’s some kind of ring, operating in Florida. We’re having trouble proving it. Maybe the two of you can find something we’ve missed.” 

Allison gripped the table, taking a deep breath. “That’s… thank you, sir.” She blurted. “We’ll do our best - I mean, we won’t let you down.”

“We will try not to, anyway.” Stiles murmured. “Is there a time frame we have to work with? Is travel involved?” 

“We’d prefer not to have to send you out there.” Calloway admitted. “But if it’s necessary, then yes, you’ll have to go to Florida. And the sooner, the better, as far as solving this.” 

Allison smiled. “Let’s hope we really are good at what we do, then. I’ve lived in Florida.” She looked at Stiles. “I don’t recommend it.”

“Noted.” Stiles smiled. He looked up when another agent brought in folders for him and Allison. “We’ll get home and go over this before dinner.” He stood up, opening his messenger bag and putting the folder inside. “Hopefully, we’ll have something for you in the morning.” 

Their instructor shook his head. “We’ve had our best people on this for about three months. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think you can help.” 

“With all due respect, sir.” Allison gathered her things, and then looked up at Calloway, giving him a bright smile. “Your best people weren’t us. We’re not promising to solve this, but we’ll find something useful.”

“That’s what I’m hoping.” Calloway grinned. “See you two tomorrow.” 

Stiles glanced from Allison to Calloway, staying quiet as he went down the hall to the staircase and made his way to the first floor. 

Allison turned to follow Stiles, giving a wave to her professor over her shoulder as she left. She jogged forward to catch up with Stiles, practically bubbling over in excitement. “A real case. Stiles, we’ve got our first real case!” She gushed.

“I know.” Stiles laughed. “Everyone else hates us. Inviting them over is probably a bad idea.” 

“Is it bad that I kind of want to chance it anyway?” Allison asked, finally matching his pace and wrapping one of her arms firmly around his. She looked up at him gleefully. “I don’t even care if they don’t show up!”

“Okay. We’ll invite everyone over, including Lydia, and solve this case and maybe get to skip a course or two.” Stiles smiled. “Calloway will be happy, I’m sure. Not having us as students anymore.” 

“Probably.” Allison snorted. “He’s surprised us before, though - he might get upset at not having us in his class anymore.”

“Not if he wants to date you.” Stiles remarked. “And I think he does.” 

“What?” Allison sputtered, blinking at him. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the big damned grin on his face every time he looks at you.” Stiles snorted. “You really can’t tell?” 

Allison scowled. “How long did it take me to realize that Matt was interested in me, and then interested in a creepy way?” She asked. “I wouldn’t expect it of - He’s our _teacher_!” She hissed, looking scandalized. 

“Not for the rest of our lives, he’s not.” Stiles pointed out. “It’s okay if you don’t like him. Him liking you doesn’t mean you have to like him.” 

Allison looked at him uncertainly. “I mean, I like him. I just don’t know if I could like him like that? And… I really don’t want the rumors that would start cropping up if it gets out that I’m dating my former instructor - if I choose to do that, I mean. That’s not - I’m a hard worker. I don’t want people looking at me and thinking that it’s possible that I could have… done something to get to the top.”

Stiles turned toward Allison and put his hands on her shoulders. “Okay. Then don’t worry about it. If he asks you out, you can say no. If he acts like a dick, I’ll tell everyone what happened and he can fuck off. But I don’t think he’s that kind of guy.” 

Allison nodded slowly, reaching up to clasp her hands around Stiles’ wrists. “Okay,” she murmured. “You’re right.”

“Now let’s go home and read over these files.” Stiles grinned. “And find a way to handle this without having to go to Florida.” 

Allison laughed, bouncing on her toes gleefully. “This is going to be amazing.” She murmured. She beamed at Stiles. “I’m so glad you’re my partner.” She told him. 

“Yeah? You wouldn’t trade me in for Lydia?” Stiles teased. 

Allison shook her head. “I’d love to have Lydia with me and you know that, but for this, for what you and I can do together… I wouldn’t trade you for anyone.”

Stiles grinned. “I wouldn’t trade you, either.” He murmured, then kept one hand on her shoulder as he guided her toward the building’s exit. “What do you want for dinner?” 

Allison leaned against him, looking thoughtful. “What haven’t we had yet since we moved here? Thai? Korean?” She looked up at him. “We could go to that old world market and get Korean noodles or something. Make it - whatever it is - ourselves?”

Stiles nodded. “We’ll go there on the way home, then.” He nodded to one of their classmates as the man passed him and Allison. “Or we could go home and sleep, since that’s an option, and then order in.” 

Allison’s eyes lit up. “Oh, that. The second one. I vote that.” She sighed. “Sleep sounds so good right now.”

“Yeah.” Stiles agreed. “This weekend, I might actually have to go shopping for warmer clothes. I thought northern California was cold.” He shivered, just thinking about the fact that frost was already everywhere in the mornings. 

“That’s a good idea.” Allison murmured, wincing. “I guess West Coast winters have nothing on the East Coast.”

“I guess we’re going to find out, yeah?” Stiles laughed, letting go of Allison and tucking his hands into his pockets. “I just don’t want to become the kind of guy who wears sweaters. I’m not Ned Flanders or Mr. Rogers, and I feel like... that’s their whole thing?” He shrugged. 

Allison looked amused. “Stiles, it’s not like anyone would lump you in with them for wearing sweaters when it gets cold. If they mocked you for it, they’d have to mock themselves, too, because I guarantee that half of them do the same.”

“I’ll see if I can even find one I’d want to wear.” Stiles shook his head. “But I probably won’t.” 

“We’ll find something for you.” Allison murmured. “If you want my help, I mean.”

“I probably always will.” Stiles remarked. “You won’t judge me like Lydia, or tell me something looks good when it doesn’t, like Scott. He’s nice, but that’s - he can’t be objective because he’s afraid of hurting my feelings.” 

“Mm.” Allison sighed, nodding. “Definitely one of his faults. Didn’t stop him from doing it anyway, of course.” She shook her head. “I’ll always be there if you need me.”

“I’ll be around if you need me, too.” Stiles smiled. “But not while I’m sleeping because that’s sacred.” He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye as they walked. “Also not while I’m masturbating.” 

“Noted.” Allison replied easily. “Same goes for me, too. On both fronts.”

Stiles burst out laughing and turned, hugging Allison. “I don’t think I can express how awesome you are.” 

Allison giggled and hugged him back. “You don’t have to express it to me,” she assured him, contentedly looping her arms around his waist and tilting her head back to look up at him, a cheeky smile tugging at her lips. “I already know.”

Stiles grinned. “I figured you would say that.” He let go with one arm, guiding her toward the closest train station. 

Allison leaned against him and hummed, keeping one of her arms securely wrapped around him as well. 

***

After a nap and dinner, Stiles started sorting through the papers in the file that Calloway had given him. He smiled to himself as he got different colors of yarn out of his desk, stringing them from one of his notes to another one, as he tried to make sense of the information that he and Allison had. The alleged ring of identity thefts weren’t anything that made sense. Camera footage proved that the card owners were the ones making purchases, but all of them said they hadn’t been in Florida at the time, and they had people who could verify that. Stiles knew what he thought the only real options were, but he wanted Allison’s opinion before he started writing up a report to give to Calloway. 

Allison leaned against the doorway, peering in at Stiles and already dressed in her pajama pants and a tank top. “You have your thinky face on. What did you figure out?”

Stiles glanced at Allison, taking in the sight of the shirt with a kitten on it and light blue plaid pajama pants. “One, you’re adorable.” He teased. “Two, the criminals we’re looking at here might be nonexistent. The people were on camera, buying the things they insist they didn’t purchase, even though they have confirmation that they were elsewhere when the purchases were made in Florida. Uh...” He glanced at the wall, then looked back at Allison. “So either we’re looking at a ring of evil twins or evil clones, or... shapeshifters.” 

Allison looked back at him, grinning faintly. “Okay. So… the most likely thing that most people want to hear is that it’s probably evil twins. I would agree… to a point. They _are_ twins, of a sort. I’m thinking shapeshifters. It’d be so easy for them to pick a target, shift into them and then ‘steal’ their identity without actually stealing it.”

“Yeah. But how do we tell Calloway that shapeshifters are a thing?” Stiles sighed. “We’re going to have to go to Florida, aren’t we?” 

Allison grimaced. “We might. I’d really rather not, but…” she sighed. “We might not have a choice. Not if we…” She paused, and then took a deep breath. “What if we actually do tell Calloway? I mean… I know it’s a hell of a long shot for him to believe us, especially with something as ridiculous as this, but… it couldn’t hurt to try, right? He did give us that ‘case’ about the chupacabra.”

“Right.” Stiles murmured. “We’ll need proof. We can’t expect him to just trust us on faith.” 

“Right.” Allison sighed, slinking into the room and leaning across the desk next to him. Her eyes studied the files thoughtfully. “We might need to go to Florida regardless, solely for that proof.”

“So we’ll tell him that we want to talk to witnesses in person.” Stiles mused. “To gather more evidence for ourselves. Just do some follow-up interviews.” 

“That sounds good.” Allison murmured, looking over at him. “What’s our game plan when we get there? When we find these guys?”

“Shapeshifters are allergic to silver, right?” Stiles murmured. “So we find a way to expose them to it and see if it causes a problem.” 

“Hopefully they’re allergic to actual silver, and it’s not a clever way of saying that they’re allergic to an Argent.” Allison snorted. “But as far as silver goes… I mean, I still have my family crest.”

Stiles grinned. “I should get myself something like that too, yeah?” 

“Probably.” Allison grinned back at him. “What would be your crest, if you had one, anyway?”

Stiles thought for a minute, then spoke quietly. “Probably a fox or a lightning bolt.” 

Allison was silent before her hand crept over and placed itself over his, squeezing gently. “I think it’s a good crest. A good idea.” She murmured. 

Stiles nodded. “Thanks.” He glanced toward his dresser. “I think we’d probably better pack and bring things with us, just to prove that we’re serious about going to Florida. Maybe we can even leave right away tomorrow? I’m a little freaked out about being right about the shapeshifters, and actually sort of hoping that we’re facing a bunch of evil clones.” 

“Would the clones really be much better than the shapeshifters?” Allison asked curiously, her hand still rubbing lightly over his, though she didn’t seem conscious about it. “I think I’d rather take on the shifters. They’re a known quantity. I’m kind of glad you were right about them. But yeah, I think packing is in our best interests right now.”

“Entity.” Stiles murmured, smiling at Allison. “So go pack a bag for at least a few days, and I’ll do the same and then...” He shrugged one shoulder. “We can watch a movie?” 

Allison nodded, smiling back at him. “A movie sounds good.” She murmured. “Meet in the living room in twenty?”

Stiles nodded. His hand felt strangely cold when he stepped back from Allison. As he packed, he thought about how close they had become in the past month. He knew that other people thought they were a couple, and they had needed to correct people more than a few times about it. But he was starting to get tired of explaining himself, and he wondered if it would really be so terrible if he just let people think he was dating Allison. It didn’t mean he was going to, or that she was even interested in him. 

Allison turned to leave the room in a bit of a hurry, wanting to pack her things solely so she would have the excuse to snuggle against his side during the movie later. She had found herself becoming incredible tactile as they spent time together away from home, and Stiles gave the best hugs that she had ever had. 

Stiles set his bag near the front door, then dropped into a sitting position on the couch, grabbing the remote and turning the tv on. There were a few movies that he and Allison wanted to watch, and he selected one and started it, pausing after a few seconds to wait for Allison. 

Allison wandered into the living room, her bag over her shoulder, and she smiled at Stiles before dropping down next to him and curling up against his side. “Ready.” She declared, peeking up at him.

Stiles felt a little guilty as he put his arm around Allison, deciding in that moment to just see how far he could push things until he either got slapped or - something else happened. 

Allison sighed, letting her head tip against his shoulder as the movie played. “So… god forbid this trip to Florida takes us to Tampa.” She murmured. “We avoid Tampa at all costs. Miami is okay.” She looked up at him cheekily. “Maybe we can sneak in a visit to Orlando while we’re there.”

Stiles laughed. “What if we have to go to Tampa, though?” 

“We… send in an intermediary instead?” Allison suggested, raising her brows and shrugging. 

Stiles nodded. “I think we can handle anything, but I understand.” 

Allison jutted her lower lip out. “I just really hate Tampa.” She told him unapologetically. 

“Why?” Stiles grinned. “What happened there? Did a gang of senior citizen clowns throw pies at you?” 

Allison smiled awkwardly at him. “An older guy acted like I was only around and allowed to exist for his benefit. That’s all I really want to say about it.” She murmured, shifting uncomfortably. 

“Sorry.” Stiles mumbled. “But it’s a pretty big city and you’ll have me -” He frowned. “God, that sounds worse. Nevermind. You don’t need me to save you.” 

“I’ll still be really glad that you’ll be there.” Allison told him earnestly. “Even if I don’t need you to save me, I’m still really glad that you’re my partner.”

“It’ll probably be somewhere like St. Augustine.” Stiles snorted. “Not like Miami or Tampa.” He rubbed her shoulder. 

“Can we hope for Orlando?” Allison asked, curling into him and relaxing. “Or at least somewhere close? Like… Kissimmee?”

Stiles blinked, needing a minute to understand that Allison hadn’t been asking for a kiss. “I think when we handle this, we’ll have earned some time off and maybe they’ll give us a week to just chill out at Disney World. On government funding.” 

Allison giggled quietly. “Okay. That sounds good to me.” She stared forward at the tv, nuzzling her cheek against him.


	4. Chapter 4

Stiles nodded to their instructor, the next morning. He had barely slept, and he was pretty sure that getting himself three cups of coffee hadn’t been the wisest decision, but he knew that one would just make him sleep and two wouldn’t give him enough energy to get through lunch. Three had him feeling like a live wire, but he knew it would wear off eventually. “We came to the conclusion that the information is inconclusive.” He blurted. “So we need to go to Florida. How do we make that happen?” He glanced at Allison, hoping that the words he’d spoken hadn’t run together too much. 

Allison looked back at him, looking bleary-eyed and drained. “Is there a magic password that we need to give or something?” She asked Calloway, finally looking away from Stiles to study her teacher. 

“No?” Calloway shook his head. “I helped compile everything. What’s so inconclusive?” 

Stiles put a hand on Allison’s shoulder, still mindful of his determination to keep touching her until she got tired of it. “Okay, it wasn’t meant as an insult. You yourself said that you guys have been trying to deal with this for a while and you were having trouble. You gave us the case, we read over everything you have and we want to go to Florida, to make our own assessments. We have a couple theories, but we just need more proof.” 

“What kind of theories?” Calloway reached over to lock the door, shutting the other students out and feeling grateful that he knew that Stilinski and Argent would be in earlier than the others, and had shown up to be there before them. 

Stiles hesitated. “You’re going to think we’re insane.” 

Allison fidgeted in place, looking at Stiles and taking a deep breath. “Very insane. Our theories are more on the… um. Mythological creature side.”

Calloway’s lips quirked and he shook his head. “Do you think we gave you that chupacabra thing by mistake? Anyone who thinks it was just some Halloween-themed case won’t be any wiser, and the people in the know can solve it fast enough. What are we dealing with?” 

“Shapeshifters.” Stiles muttered, baffled. “Unless there’s some other government organization out there that specializes in clones.” 

Allison glanced between them, blinking rapidly. “What.” She started. “Just… did you really just - the chupacabra case was deliberate? This case was, too? You know about… this stuff?” She leaned forward toward him. “Does this mean there’s actually a division for the supernatural in the government?”

Calloway nodded. “Well, not yet. We’re working on building one. Certain things have come to our attention in the past couple of years, but nobody else had the knowledge we were hoping for. Not until the two of you got here, anyway.” 

Allison looked pleased, straightening up and watching Calloway. “That’s… I want to say flattering, but that might be wrong?”

Stiles smiled, glancing over at Allison before he looked back at Calloway. “Okay. Here’s what we want. Two tickets to Florida, to handle the case. When we’ve got it handled - and I’m just going ahead and saying it shouldn’t take more than a week - we want a week of vacation to unwind. Disney World. We won’t fall behind in any of our other classes, so long as we can email things in.” 

Calloway laughed. “I guess I can’t argue with it. You’re in a place to negotiate. I’ll find you at lunch and let you know what’s going on, but you should probably...” He stopped, eyeing their larger-than-usual bags. “Not be that damned confident. Jesus, you two.” 

Allison refused to look the least little bit abashed about it. “We kind of have to be confident if we hope to be good at our jobs. And we are.” She pointed out. 

“I’m not criticizing, I’m impressed.” Calloway explained. “You eat in the cafeteria, don’t you? I’ll find you when I get the tickets.”

Stiles grinned. “Thanks.”

Allison grinned as well. “Thank you so much.”

***

That night, Stiles flopped backward onto his hotel room bed and looked up at the ceiling, smiling. “We’ll have this shit handled tomorrow and be at Disney World the day after.” He glanced at Allison. “What do you want to do, tonight?”

“‘The same thing we do every night, Pinky.’” Allison quoted, unable to resist and giggling. 

Stiles grinned. “You’ve assimilated. Everyone back home is going to hate me so much.”

Allison waved her hand dismissively, dropping down to sit on the edge of Stiles’ bed. “I’m not bothered by it. They’ll get over it.”

“We could watch a movie or go out somewhere.” Stiles suggested. “We made a whole point of figuring out when we should party, and we haven’t gone to any parties.”

“Well, we’ve been pretty busy, showing up everyone in our class.” Allison pointed out, poking his foot. “But… yeah. Going out somewhere sounds good.”

Stiles grabbed the Orlando city guide and started flipping through it. “There’s a club that has an eighteen and up night, tonight. But I’m not actually much of a club guy. We can go if you want to... or we could just go out to dinner?”

Allison looked at him in amusement. “We don’t have to go to a club. I’m not going to cry about it if we don’t go, so… let’s find a really good restaurant and pig out.”

Stiles smiled. “Not too much, or I won’t be able to run anywhere tomorrow. Our line of work involves so much running. But a seafood place would be awesome.”

Allison squirmed toward him a little to peer at the city guide, furrowing her brows intently, and then laughed, pointing at a place. “How about ‘The Frying Dutchman’?” She asked. 

Stiles laughed. “Yeah, we can do that.” He nodded, then tossed the guide aside and rested a hand on Allison’s shoulder, climbing over her to get up, even though he didn’t need to move in that direction. The voice in his head that sounded like Scott told him he was kind of being an asshole, but he ignored it. As long as Allison didn’t complain or tell him to fuck off, he was going to keep getting into her personal space.

Allison sputtered out a laugh and smacked at him playfully, lightly kicking at his backside with her foot. “You’re ridiculous.” She told him, grinning as she slid off of the bed as well. 

“That’s not news.” Stiles grinned back at her. “Come on, I want to see if something amazing happens while we’re here. Did you ever notice how many movies and tv shows there are... books, too... where someone travels to a different place and their entire life changes?”

Allison grinned softly at him. “You want your life to change?” She asked, moving over to him and looping her arm through his. “I can get on board with that. I’m definitely up for life-changing experiences.”

“Anything in particular?” Stiles patted his pocket to make sure he had his room key, then opened the door and walked into the hallway with Allison. 

“Whatever comes my way, I guess.” Allison murmured. “As long as it’s for the better.” She smiled. “I mean, everything has already been pretty good, but it’d be awesome if it got better.”

“Maybe you’ll end up meeting your soulmate tonight.” Stiles laughed. “If you believe in that sort of thing.” 

Allison’s eyes gleamed a little in excitement, but the rest of her face didn’t give away anything else she may have been thinking. “Maybe.” She agreed simply. 

“Maybe?” Stiles teased. “We’ve been on a marathon of movies like that. Sliding Doors, A Walk to Remember, The Lake House, Casablanca, Sleepless in Seattle... and none of those were my idea.” 

“... Lydia’s a bad influence on me?” Allison tried, and then laughed. “I don’t know, Stiles. I’m just saying, there aren’t any guarantees that something like that could happen, but… I wouldn’t be opposed to it, if it did.”

While they had been talking, Stiles and Allison had taken the elevator to the lobby. The elevator beside theirs opened as they were moving toward the doors, and Stiles glanced over his shoulder and smiled, stopping to wait for Calloway. “Hey. We’re going to grab dinner. Is that where you were headed?” 

“I was considering it.” Calloway nodded. “But I don’t want to interrupt your... date?” 

“We’re not dating.” Stiles shook his head. 

“We’re just very good friends. And roommates. You can join us.” Allison blurted out her suggestion, staring at her instructor and clearing her throat. “We’re heading to the Frying Dutchman. Because seafood.” She looked at Stiles, wrinkling her nose. “How likely is it that this place will end up on the ‘never again’ list?”

“Well, we’re not staying here long, but... if the fried food is chewy, that’s a problem.” Stiles snorted. “Just come with us.” 

Calloway glanced from one of them to the other, then nodded. “Okay, I can do that.” 

Allison beamed at him. “Cool.” She murmured, and started walking again, keeping her arm wrapped around Stiles’, though she couldn’t quite manage to keep herself from peeking at Calloway. 

“How long have you two known each other?” Calloway asked as he followed them out to the nearest cab stand. 

“Since sophomore year of high school. Second semester.” Stiles smiled. “Ally was the new girl and ended up dating my best friend. He’s her stepbrother, now.” 

“And it’s still very weird between us.” Allison snorted. “But my dad’s happy, his mom’s happy, and he’s got a girlfriend he’s been with for awhile, so I’m not miserable about it.” She looked at Calloway. “Is it presumptuous to ask you what your first name is? I mean, am I stepping out of line, since you’re still our instructor? I was just wondering since cop procedurals and crap usually have the authorities calling each other by their last names.”

The agent laughed. “Right. Well, since we’re co-workers now, I guess it’s fine. My first name is Arthur. It’s... I don’t like it, half the time.” He admitted, embarrassed. “Because I’ve dealt with all kinds of crap about it. You know ‘do you have a sister named D.W?’ or ‘do you have a round table at home?’ Stupid things like that. I think being in law enforcement was kind of inevitable, since I went by my last name whenever possible.” He glanced at Stiles. “I mean, you get it, I think? Sorry if that’s being rude.” 

Stiles shrugged, smiling. “Yeah, you’re not wrong, though.” He stopped, lost in thought. “Oh god, you’re not going to like this.” He muttered, grinning widely. “But I think it might’ve been some kind of prophetic thing, you being named Arthur.” He gestured to Allison. “Her family is kind of legendary. Like, they’ve been hunting werewolves for centuries. And my first name means sword and glory.” 

Allison snorted out an unattractive laugh. “There’s this whole myth - uh, I’m sure you know it - that silver is dangerous to werewolves, that it will kill them, that all it takes is a silver bullet. Well…” she cleared her throat and awkwardly gestured at herself. “They didn’t mean the metal. I mean, they did, because we use it, but they meant my family.” She squinted, and then looked at Stiles. “I didn’t know that about your name. I like that!”

Stiles smiled. “Thanks. I don’t talk about it a whole lot because I’d have to explain what my first name actually is, and since you both know it... it’s not that big of a deal?” 

“We’ve been trying to find a name for our division.” Calloway remarked. “So I guess ‘RT’ or something like that might have to work.” He opened the back door of one of the cabs, gesturing for Allison to get in. 

Allison’s cheeks reddened a bit, but she nodded in thanks and slipped into the cab. “We could romanticize it a little.” She teased. “KoC. Knights of Camelot.”

“I’m pretty sure that Knights of Columbus would be pissed if we stole their acronym.” Stiles smiled. “Knights From Camelot, though? KFC. And I don’t care what they think.” He got into the cab beside Allison and fastened his seatbelt, then gave the driver the address for the restaurant they were going to.

Allison couldn’t hold back her snort, letting her head fall back against the seat as she laughed. “KFC,” she repeated. “Well, it’s for a better company than the one the acronym currently stands for. I could get used to it. At least until someone tries to rebrand us again.”

Calloway rolled his eyes fondly. “I think we’ll have to work on it some more. And please, don’t ask if we can refer to it as the X-Files division. That’s come up more than once, from people who like to mock what I’m trying to do.” 

Allison’s lower lip jutted out into a pout. “Okay, we’ll keep looking, then.” She agreed eventually, still looking a bit put-out, but amused. “Are names in other languages okay, or is that a no-no?”

“I don’t know.” Calloway looked like he was giving it some thought for a moment. “I mean, I think in English would be preferable, but... you two are the pioneers, here.” 

“Ugh, let’s not call ourselves Puritans.” Stiles blurted. “Bad, bad connotations.” 

Allison dropped her head to Stiles’ shoulder, not even bothering to cover up her snorting. “Yeah, that’s definitely not going to happen.” She murmured. “What about something that just has ‘supernatural’ or ‘mythical’ or something in the title? Or it can be a phrase that spells a word.” Her lips twitched. “Like S.P.E.W. Or Dumbledore’s Army. But like… not.”

“We can work backwards.” Stiles mused. “Come up with a good word and just create words that make sense, for it.” 

Calloway fought the urge to facepalm as he listened to the partners’ conversation. He thought they were making good points, but their nerdy behavior was going to get them laughed at, and he didn’t want to hurt their feelings by telling them that. 

“Don’t laugh.” Stiles began. “But there are groups like this, already. They’re just, uh, in comic books. But there’s... Special Threat Assessment for Known Extranormalities, or ‘STAKE.’ And we could just use that? Only I don’t like ‘Extranormalities’ because it sounds weird to me. So maybe just Entities, instead? Because maybe we won’t just handle... special cases. But probably. I don’t know. Either way, the ‘special’ kind of implies ‘not typical,’ so there’s that.” 

Allison sat quietly, thinking the word over. “S.T.A.K.E.” She murmured. “That’s… I like that, actually. I like that a lot.” She glanced across Stiles at Calloway, raising her eyebrows expectantly. 

Calloway laughed. “I’m sorry, but you’re both such nerds...” He shook his head. “It’s fine, it works, let’s just stick with it.” 

Allison squinted at him, then reached across Stiles and pinched Calloway’s arm. “Do you have a problem with nerds?” She asked sharply. 

“No? Did you miss the part where I said my first name is Arthur?” Calloway frowned, rubbing his arm. “I won’t kick you out of the program for pinching me, but seriously don’t do that again. Damn.” 

“She grew up with an actual psychopath. Or two.” Stiles murmured, giving Allison a warning look and shaking his head at her. “But you already knew that. You did your full fact-checking. Look, she and I both have a little bit of trouble controlling ourselves, when we’re pissed off. But we won’t do anything to jeopardize our careers.” 

Allison grit her teeth a little - she hated apologizing, and she hated apologizing more when she knew she was in the wrong - but she sucked in a deep breath and gazed at Calloway steadily. “I’m sorry. That was out of line. I don’t react well when I think I’m being mocked, and…” she shook her head. “I apologize.”

“I shouldn’t have said it, anyway. It was unprofessional. I just thought we were on friendly terms. My mistake.” Calloway muttered. 

Allison studied him for a moment, and then reached out to touch his hand lightly. “If we aren’t yet, we will be. I have trust issues that I need to hurdle, and one of the only two people I’ve trusted this far with who I am is sitting right next to you.” She tried for a small smile. “Maybe you can get me to widen that circle.” She faltered, and then furrowed her eyebrows together. “That sounds filthy. I didn’t mean for that to sound that way. That wasn’t what I meant.”

“It didn’t sound that bad.” Stiles assured Allison. He glanced over at Calloway, then looked back at Allison, smiling gently at her. “I think you two probably need to talk. I’m just going to place a to-go order and come back here with it. Or I might even just take the cab right back to the hotel and order a pizza.” He shrugged. “I’m tired, anyway.” 

Allison looked back at him uncertainly, a hint of nervousness in her expression. “Are you sure?” She asked in a small voice, well aware that her eyes were basically pleading with him to stay. She wasn’t sure that being alone with the man who was basically her boss was a good idea - she just wasn’t sure _why_ it wasn’t a good idea.

“Are you planning to shove him off a dock, somewhere?” Stiles teased. “Because if you’re not, I think you’re both going to be fine.” 

Allison batted at him, rolling her eyes and smiling. She took a deep breath and nodded, knowing wholeheartedly that she could trust him. “Okay.” She said quietly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone is wondering, we've decided that Calloway looks like Ryan Eggold.


	5. Chapter 5

Stiles ate with one hand while he flipped through the documents from the file, with the other. He had already gone over everything at least twenty times, but he wanted to be ready for the next day, and he had nothing else to do while Allison was having dinner with Calloway. 

‘Dude. Duuuuuude. Text me back or call me or something. I’m bored.’ Scott texted Stiles’ number, and then for good measure he began sending smiley faces one line at a time.

Stiles laughed and called Scott, sitting down on his bed. He hadn’t said much to his best friend about what was going on in his life, since he was pretty sure so much of it was classified and he didn’t want Scott to worry about him, anyway. “How are you bored? Don’t you have a thousand and one animals to study, and a girlfriend?” 

“Malia’s bonding with Peter.” Scott mumbled, sounding put-out. “And I’m tired of studying for now. And I feel like we haven’t talked in a thousand years.”

“Yeah, it’s been a few weeks.” Stiles agreed. Most of their communication had been through text messages, tweets and instagram posts. “Ally’s sort of on a date. Maybe. I don’t know. I’m kind of bored, too.” 

“We could Skype?” Scott suggested. “Who’s this guy she’s on a date with? Did you vet him? Is he a douche?”

Stiles laughed as he worked on opening his laptop and turning it on, the phone on speaker on the table beside his laptop. “It’s not exactly a date, I trust him, and he’s not a douche. I kind of pushed her toward having dinner with him, without me. I think he likes her. He’s smart and he’s nice.” 

“What does Ally think of him, though?” Scott asked, frowning a little. “I mean, did she _want_ to be on a maybe-date with this guy?”

“I think she’s interested, but she’s not saying as much. She probably got it in her head that she wasn’t going to date until after college, just like she said she wasn’t going to date until after high school, and that didn’t work out, either.” Stiles snorted. He turned on Skype, then realized his notes were everywhere, so he hurried up and started putting them away. He didn’t think Scott would somehow mess up his investigation, but if a full-time agent even thought that Stiles was sharing information, he knew he would get into trouble, possibly even arrested. 

Scott huffed out a small laugh. “Well, I probably didn’t help matters in high school.” He murmured. “Are you okay with this, dude? I mean, you live together. If she does end up seeing this dude, what happens if she brings him home with her?”

“We have rules about that, already. We sat down over dinner, right after we moved our stuff in, and made a list.” Stiles started a video chat with Scott as he spoke, continuing their conversation as soon as he could see Scott on his monitor. He hung up the phone. “No partying, except on Friday and Saturday nights. No bringing anyone back to the apartment and sexiling our roommate. No walking into a room without knocking. Laundry on Sundays, cooking our own meals five days a week. Or cooking everything on Sunday and reheating five days a week, as needed.” He shrugged. “We’ve been pretty boring, actually. We don’t go anywhere but classes and the grocery store, unless it’s a night that we’ve agreed to either go out to dinner or order in. We’re both competitive as hell, like you need to be told?” He smiled. “So we’re more focused on studying and being the best students in the class. I think we’d actually make Lydia cry if she had aspirations to be an agent. We’ve already lost one person, and Calloway says that at least half of us will be gone by the time the four years are up.” 

“Damn.” Scott laughed. “So basically you guys went to college, you’re away from home for the first real time, and instead of partying and having the time of your lives, you’re being homebodies and burying yourselves in schoolwork.” His lips twitched. “You make dinner together. You’re an old married couple.”

Stiles grimaced. “Ugh, really?” He shook his head. “Look, my prospects are limited. There aren’t a lot of girls in the class with me, and even if there were - one of them picks her nose. I’m not kidding. The guys fucking hate me because I’m smarter than them.” 

“So look outside of class!” Scott told him, laughing. “Go anywhere, dude. I bet Allison would totally be your wingman, go to a bar, go bowling, go do anything, man. The girls will find you, believe me.”

“I guess I can try.” Stiles mused. “We were talking about having a Halloween party and inviting people we know, but they seriously hate us, now. We sort of got promoted. Not really, but... close enough. Anyway, I’m sure we can find a club somewhere.” 

“That’s big, though, dude!” Scott looked delighted. “Screw those other guys, you’re not gonna have to see them anymore, if you’ve been promoted or whatever! And yeah, yeah, definitely go to a club or something. You might as well have a good time while you’re looking, right?”

“You know, the only reason I ever went to Jungle was because you were going and also we were trying to save Danny from being murdered by Jackson?” Stiles pointed out. “I’m not a club kind of guy. I’ll go if someone drags me, but if it’s up to me, it’s not happening.” 

Scott shrugged a shoulder. “So then Ally will probably drag you with her, if she wants to go. I get that it’s not your thing, man, but… well, I mean, I guess you could make a profile on a dating site?”

“I probably could.” Stiles agreed. “I don’t know. To be honest, I haven’t felt like looking. I guess I’ve been kind of afraid of rejection?” 

“I get that.” Scott said softly. “It’s not like I’ve never been afraid of the same thing. But, I mean… I’d kind of rather deal with rejection, you know? I just… I want you to be happy, you know? However you end up putting yourself out there.”

“I am happy, though?” Stiles hated that he sounded a little confused. “I mean, I’ve got a job I never even thought I could have, because I figured out things faster than other people did. I’m an expert in my field already. Do you know how big of a deal that is? I can’t even legally drink, but I can lead a team and deal with criminals.” 

Scott smiled. “That’s good enough for me, then.” He murmured. “But if you get lonely, dude, I’m signing you up for a thing.”

Stiles laughed. “Do it anyway. I want to see what happens.” 

Scott looked gleeful. “Sweet!” There was a tapping noise as he looked away from the camera, and then he said, “What picture are you cool with me using of you? Buzzcut hair, or the bro backwards hat from just before you and Ally left Beacon Hills?”

“Bro hat.” Stiles grinned. “That’s a better one. What site are you using? It had better not be craigslist.” 

“Dude, no, I wouldn’t do that to you.” Scott snorted. “No, it’s a college singles thing. Tell me what you don’t want me to add to your profile, and then I’ll read everything off to you and send you the link.”

“Okay. I don’t want anyone to know that I’m joining the FBI. That’s a violation, you know? Just... uh, say that I was on the high school lacrosse and cross country teams, and that I moved across the country to attend college and I could at least use some new friends.” Stiles made a face. “I’m sorry if that makes me sound like a dick. I’m not trying to replace anybody.” 

“I know, dude.” Scott said softly pausing in his typing and smiling at him. “I miss you.” 

“I miss you, too.” Stiles laughed. “There’s a lot I wish I could tell you, but I can’t. Um... Ally and I are in Florida right now.” 

“Oh, cool!” Scott blurted. “Did you get to see Orlando yet? Or Cape Canaveral?”

“We’re in Orlando. We’re going to chill out at Disney World for a week.” Stiles laughed. “But that’ll be later.” He grinned. “You know, we should all make plans for Spring Break, now.” 

“Dude, totally.” Scott nodded rapidly. “We could go to Palm Springs, or… Cancún, or the Bahamas… or affordable places, too. Um. Maybe we should tell Lydia.” He laughed. “She’d know exactly where to go.”

“Yeah.” Stiles picked up his phone and sent a text to his stepsister. ‘What are we doing for Spring Break?’ He glanced up at Scott, smiling when Lydia responded almost immediately. “She says that everyone goes to islands or Mexico, and she thinks we should go to Niagara Falls.” 

Scott’s eyes widened slightly. “Dude. Yeah. Yes!”

“Okay, but that’s like... a romantic spot.” Stiles pointed out. “So it’s great for you and Malia, but...” He shook his head, shrugging. “Never mind, we’ll do it.” 

“Well, I mean, it’s also a touristy spot, too?” Scott rubbed his chin. “I mean, it’s cool if you don’t want to do it. Why does Lydia want to do it, anyway, is she even dating anyone?”

“I don’t know.” Stiles bit his lip. “Um. I haven’t really talked to anyone. It’s not like I consciously decided not to.” He stammered. “It was just, uh, Ally and I are always studying or eating, or working out to counteract that we’re always eating? So we don’t... at least, if she does talk to anyone, she doesn’t tell me, and she kind of tells me everything, these days. I made a joke about masturbating and she said not to interrupt her when she does it, and that was...” He laughed. “I told her that she spends too much time around me. She even made a Pinky and the Brain reference earlier.” 

Scott blinked rapidly. “Damn. No kidding,” he murmured. “She never made those kind of jokes and stuff when we were together.”

“I wouldn’t let it bug you, you know? I mean, you have Malia and also, it just means that Ally’s as disgusting as I am.” Stiles shook his head, smiling. “I actually feel a little bad for Calloway.” 

“Calloway?” Scott looked at Stiles, scrunching up his nose. “She might be dating a dude named Calloway? Are you sure he’s not a douche?” He shook his head. “And, dude, it’s cool, I’m not upset about it. It’s just sort of surprising that I never really saw that side of her before, you know? She must be really comfortable around you to make those jokes.”

“He’s not a douche.” Stiles blinked. “Oh god, no. What have I done?” He feigned horror. “She went from McCall to Calloway. I should stop her right now.” He picked up his phone and pretended to text Allison, glancing up at Scott and smirking. 

Scott looked confused, and then looked annoyed, squinting at his best friend. “You’re an ass.”

“Yeah.” Stiles agreed. “Seriously though, the guy’s a good guy. He’s not someone I could officially say is my friend, but yeah, he’s my friend. Just, for the sake of not getting accused of special treatment, no, I barely know the guy.” He laughed. 

“Well… I mean, I trust you… and if you trust him with Ally, then I guess I can, too.” He shrugged. “Can’t help being overprotective, though, you know? Don’t tell her, she’d totally kick my ass.”

“I know.” Stiles nodded. “I might actually call her and see how she’s doing.” 

“At the very least text her.” Scott agreed, nodding. There were a few more tapping noises, and then a link popped up in the message box between then. “Okay, your profile is officially up, dude.”

Stiles clicked the link and sent Allison a text. ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ 

It took a minute, but Allison replied. ‘Hi! Surprisingly good. I know I wasn’t really, you know, up for this, but thank you for talking me into it.’

‘You’re welcome.’ Stiles replied, looking up at Scott. “She said she’s having a good time.” He read over the profile page that Scott had created for him. “This is really good. I never would have had a clue what to say about myself.” 

Scott grinned. “Well it’s a good thing I know you better than I know myself, isn’t it?” He teased Stiles. “I can type out all of the awesome information about you that people should know, that you don’t think about yourself.” He propped his chin on his hand. “She’s having s good time, huh? You’re sure she’s not, like, trying to reassure you?”

“No, she thanked me for talking her into going out.” Stiles shrugged one shoulder. “I’m glad she’s happy.” 

Scott studied him for a moment longer, unable to keep the dubious look off of his face, but he nodded slowly. “Okay.” He murmured. 

“No.” Stiles frowned. “What’s with your face?” He gestured to his own. “You look like you don’t believe me. You know that’s going to bug the shit out of me. Talk.” 

Scott paused, and then said slowly, “Do you actually listen to yourself when you talk about her? I don’t mean, like the actual things you say, although what you say is definitely important. But… the way you sound when you talk about her. You sound… well, I mean.” He exhaled. “You sound sort of… smitten.”

“Um.” Stiles took a deep breath. “Okay. I am.” He admitted. “But look, I know better than to think that she’s... I mean, I was _horrible_ , when it came to Lydia. I acted like I owned her. You know that. So I figure, if I can like Allison and encourage her to date someone, then... I’m better than I was.” 

Scott hummed in understanding. “Why didn’t you tell me, man?” He asked softly. “This must have been driving you nuts, feeling like this and not having anyone to talk to about it except for the person you felt that way about. You could’ve called me.”

“There’s no point.” Stiles shook his head. “I’m not even being all that great about it. If scenting was a thing among humans, she’d kick the shit out of me. Earlier, we were both sitting here and I climbed over her, even though I didn’t have to, just to mess with her. She kicked me. Not maliciously, but yeah. So I’ll probably - no, definitely, I'm backing off. She likes Calloway, I'm not going to mess that up for her or waste time, pining. I’ll find someone else.” 

Scott grimaced, but nodded. “Okay.” He said again, sighing. “I mean, I don’t want you miserable, wanting her and not having her. So… yeah. Find someone, dude. I don’t want you to be alone.”

“Maybe I’ll get a hundred replies to this profile.” Stiles snorted. “I’m not that optimistic. I’ll settle for three.” 

“I hope your inbox overflows.” Scott laughed. 

Stiles laughed. “Me too. Oh my god, don’t tell Allison anything, okay?” 

“I won’t say a word.” Scott promised him. 

“Thanks, bro.” Stiles murmured. “Even though I probably shouldn’t call you that anymore. You’re her bro, not mine. Our Parent Trap plans failed so hard.” 

Scott laughed. “Legally or not, you’re still my bro in every way that matters, man.” He murmured. 

“Yeah.” Stiles smiled. “I’m surprised you don’t want to kick my ass, though. Just on principle.” 

“Why, because you like my ex-girlfriend who is now my step-sister?” Scott laughed. “Dude. I trust you. And I don’t have any say over who Allison likes, or any say over who you like.” He shrugged. 

“Aww, you’re so mature.” Stiles teased. “Are you going to be home for Thanksgiving?” 

“Probably.” Scott replied, looking at Stiles in amusement. “I’m leaving right after my last class, so I should be home around five the Wednesday before.”

“Okay. I’ll try to get there as soon as I can.” Stiles murmured. “I’m hoping that’ll be Tuesday or Wednesday.” 

“Take your time and get here safe.” Scott told him. “And keep Ally safe while you’re at it.” He paused. “Again, don’t tell her I said that.”

Stiles mimed zipping his lips. “You’re more than welcome to tell her to keep _me_ safe, you know?” 

“Don’t worry, I will.” Scott assured him, laughing. “I’ll tell her to make sure that you make it home wrapped head to toe in bubble wrap. And then we’ll have a stress reliever when you get here, too.”

Stiles was quiet for a few seconds, studying the keyboard like he was trying to memorize it, even though he already knew where all of the keys were. “Since you know, can I say things without having to pretend like... like I don’t care?” 

“Of course you can.” Scott told him, frowning a little. “What sort of things?”

“Nothing bad.” Stiles blurted. “I just - uh, you’re right. I haven’t had anyone to talk to. I probably haven’t been as nice to her as I could have been. I’ve sort of been playing this game, kind of in my own head? Just seeing what she’ll let me get away with. I’m not hurting her or anything. For about a month now, we’ve been watching a movie almost every night and she’s always putting her head on my shoulder, and I’ll have my arm around her.” He hesitated, remembering the way his inner Scott had criticized him. “But like, the climbing over her thing. Just because I could? It’s kind of to mess with her. To see how long it takes before she smacks the hell out of me, I guess. I’m not out to manipulate her. At least, I don’t think I am. I just like having her close, but I don’t want to ruin anything. I kept thinking that maybe there was a chance, but I’m not going to ask her. Besides, she’s on a date right now. So obviously, she doesn’t see me like that.” 

“Well… maybe she does and maybe she doesn’t.” Scott murmured, still frowning. “But she’s close enough to you and she respects you enough that she wants you to hold her. And obviously that means she likes having you close, too. I don’t really know how I feel about you messing with her like that, but I know you, and I know you care about her so I know it’s not malicious.” He rubbed his chin. “My suggestion is probably a shitty one, but… if you want to be close to her, keep being close to her. Whether she’s on a date or not, there’s not really any guarantee that she’s going to want to keep dating this guy. You should make sure that she knows that if anything happens, you’re there for her.”

“Okay.” Stiles frowned back at his best friend. “I was thinking though, that since she’s dating someone, I should back off? It’s kind of the wrong thing, isn’t it? To always be close when she’s not even... I shouldn’t say mine, but... yeah. Mine.” 

“I didn't mean for you to make moves on her or whatever if she’s with someone.” Scott murmured. “I just meant… you know, don’t be afraid to hold her if she wants it, don’t shy away from touching her shoulder or brushing her hair back. You care about her - stuff like that shows that you care, even if it’s without any kind of romantic… whatever behind it.”

“I don’t know how to do any of this.” Stiles blurted. “Man, I don’t... there’s a reason I’ve never dated, for christ’s sake. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe. Whatever.” He ran a hand over his face, frustrated. 

“Just…” Scott exhaled, hating seeing Stiles looking so overwhelmed. “Just be who you are, okay? I know this stuff is rough and new with you, it’s supposed to be, but Allison likes who you are. So don’t be any different with her. She’ll notice if you’re different.”

“I’ll try.” Stiles muttered. “I have to go.” He shook his head slightly, grimacing. “I’ll talk to you later.” He ended the call before Scott had a chance to protest, then picked up his phone and sent Allison another text. ‘I’m going to sleep early tonight.’ He plugged his phone into his charger, turning the volume up and setting his alarm to wake him up early in the morning, so he could work out before they had to go deal with the shapeshifters. He laughed a little to himself at how different his routine was, now that he was out of high school. He knew that Scott would probably nag him from now on, trying to get him to tell Allison how he felt about her. But he had never had the courage to risk himself, that way. He thought about it as he brushed his teeth and washed his face; Allison had never really taken much initiative with Scott, either. Lydia had recommended a bowling date, and everything had kind of taken off from there. He sighed at his reflection, reminding himself that Allison was interested in Calloway and had been too intimidated to do anything about it, and she was happy that Stiles had intervened on her behalf. He didn’t get the girl, but it was okay, because he got to help make sure she was happy. Despite what Scott had advised, Stiles knew that he had to back off. He was grateful that he had a few hours to himself, to prepare for the transition to being more distant.


	6. Chapter 6

Allison crept into the hotel room quietly the next morning, unwilling to wake Stiles. She definitely hadn’t meant to stay out so late - or early? - and she was feeling chagrined and a bit embarrassed by it. Nothing had happened between herself and Calloway, she’d been insistent on that, but showing up the morning after spending an evening dining with him wouldn’t look good to anyone, and she found herself desperately not wanting to lose Stiles’ respect for her. She didn’t think he would assume what had happened, but she did want to tell him to his face that it wasn’t what it appeared to be, though the last thing she wanted to do was to bang around the hotel room and startle him from sleep. She couldn’t resist the urge to see him, though, wanting reassurance from him that she hadn’t done something immensely stupid, and she moved toward his bed, sitting carefully down on the corner by him. “Stiles?” She whispered. “Are you up?”

“Yeah.” Stiles mumbled, rubbing his eyes. He glanced at the clock, then turned his head to stare at her. “Holy shit.” 

Allison flushed red and she held her hands out. “It’s not - we didn’t do anything.” She blurted. “I swear. I just… after dinner, we talked and talked and by the time I realized how late it was… he offered to let me stay in his room. He took the fold-out couch. I’m not…” she took a slow, deep breath. “I didn’t think I’d like him as much as I do.” She looked upset by the knowledge, staring at her hands. 

“Okay, that’s... you’re allowed to do this kind of stuff. You’re an adult.” Stiles pointed out. He sat up. “And I don’t need any kind of explanation from you. I’m gonna go take a shower and get ready, because we have a long day ahead of us.” 

Allison blinked a little, but nodded slowly, sliding off the bed. “Okay.” She murmured. “I just…” She stared at him, furrowing her brows together. “This is going to sound so pathetic of me. But… I just don’t want to… be someone that would disappoint you. Regardless of whether I’m old enough to do stuff like this or not… I don’t. You know I don’t. I’m - I just don’t want to be someone - anyone - other than the person you know me as.” She grimaced a little. “And… I know you said not to explain myself, and I’m doing it anyway, but I can’t help it, I need you to… I need you to know how much your opinion - god, how much everything you think matters to me.”

Stiles knew this was the moment he had been dreading, but he had to do it. He imagined himself slamming a door as he looked up at her. “It shouldn’t.” He got up and started going through his suitcase, grabbing a change of clothes as he spoke. “I told you to go for it, but even if I hadn’t, it’s your decision to make, and you made it. We’re friends... I guess I sort of expected Scott to do whatever I told him for awhile, but he didn’t listen and I don’t see why it has to be any different with you.” He went into the bathroom and shut the door, then locked it. 

“Wha…” Allison trailed off, staring at the door and looking stricken. She went toward it and knocked. “Stiles. Stiles, come on, please, I’m not - I’m not Scott. Please don’t compare me to him. You matter to me, I want to know what you think all the time!” She knocked on the door again rapidly. “Stiles! Let me in, please?”

“Allison.” Stiles said calmly, even though he didn’t feel very calm. “I’m going to take a shower and get dressed. If you feel like you have something to make up for, you could go get me some coffee while I’m in here. Otherwise, just wait about ten minutes.” 

Allison squirmed in place, feeling frustrated, and like a bit of a failure, though she didn’t examine too closely why. She was silent for a moment before she swallowed and said, “Okay,” in a low voice. She thought about his words - _’if you feel like you have something to make up for,’_ he’d said. She didn’t understand why, but she felt like he’d hit the nail on the head. She _did_ feel like she needed to make up to him for the night before; it was odd, but she felt like she’d betrayed him. And coffee definitely wasn’t going to be enough to fix that ache in her gut. “I’ll… be here when you get out.” She murmured, and then walked toward the hotel room door in a hurry. 

Stiles took a few minutes longer than he actually needed, feeling conflicted. It wouldn’t be too hard to tell Allison how he felt about her, but there were so many things that could go wrong, so the reasons not to say anything outweighed the reasons to tell her. She obviously had a great time on her date, for one thing. Even if she hadn’t, telling her was a risk he didn’t want to take, because he couldn’t stomach the idea of living with someone who had rejected him. He dried off and got dressed, leaving the bathroom and preparing himself to talk to her again. 

Allison came back through the door, awkwardly balancing a tray in her hands, and the ear of something stuffed was in her mouth. Her eyes darted up to meet Stiles’, and she looked embarrassed again - this time at being caught out with what she’d intended to be a surprise - before the stuffed item fell out of her mouth and down to the floor. She cleared her throat and set the tray down on the small table for him. “I… snuck down and got you breakfast.” She said softly. “Portable stuff. Or it can be made portable, anyway. And um, a large coffee.” She shifted, and then picked up the stuffed animal from the floor - a small orange fox with bright amber eyes - and thrust it at him. “And this. Him. Or her, whichever gender you decide. I’ve been saying her, but it could just as easily be a him. The important thing is that it’s adorable, right?” She laughed nervously, looking up at him. 

“You bought me a stuffed animal.” Stiles took it from her, glancing down at the toy before he glanced up at Allison again. “Because we’re six?” He teased. “I’m not kidding, you don’t owe me anything. There’s no need for guilt. I told you to go out with Calloway, and you did. You did sleep, so it’s not like you’re going to be sloppy today, if you have to go on the defensive. Or offensive.” 

Allison relaxed slowly at his words, giving him a tiny, tremulous smile. “I can’t help it, though. The guilt. I know you told me to go, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to ask you to stay. I feel…” She faltered a little, twisting her hands together. She didn’t want to admit that she felt like she had cheated on him, despite his permission. “I just, I don’t want you mad at me. That was all.” She fidgeted again, and then gave in and lunged toward him, finding a spot under his arm and snuggling into it before letting out a content sigh. “You’re - don’t tell Lydia this - but you’re my best friend, I think. I don’t want someone else’s presence to… change what we have. You know?”

“Yeah.” Stiles murmured. “So we won’t let it.” He was grateful that she wasn’t a werewolf, even though he had learned how to lie to them years earlier. Just in case something slipped. “Go get ready. I’ll drink my coffee and wake up a little more.” 

Allison nodded, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder firmly and breathing in deeply before she pulled away. She smiled up at him. “Don’t forget to eat, too. I had to fight an eighty year old woman for the last bit of batter for that waffle, and you need to enjoy it so I don’t feel bad for stealing it out from under her nose.”

Stiles laughed. “You’re mean. She doesn’t have a lot of time left for waffles. Probably. Hell, she might outlive us.” 

“Nah.” Allison smiled. “I mean, I’m not trying to be mean, but I think you and I still have a lot left to do in the world, you know?” She shrugged a shoulder. “We’re going to make our mark.”

“By stealing waffles and carrying stuffed animals around.” Stiles nodded, then grinned. “So, what did you two talk about... for hours?”

“Mostly me.” Allison snorted, moving toward her luggage and pulling out her clothes for the day before she carried them to the bathroom to wash and get ready. “Which sounds like me being conceited as hell, but… I mean, I told him all about my heritage, and… explained everything we went through those last few years in Beacon Hills. I know he did his research on us, but…” she shrugged and stepped into the bathroom. “Some of that stuff really warranted explanation, I think. And it’s not as though I didn’t ask him about himself, it just… even going ahead with this, I feel awkward asking my teacher to tell me all about his life and how he grew up and what his favorite tv show is when he has five minutes to sit down.” She fidgeted a little. “And I may have talked about you quite a bit. Not just you, you and Lydia and Scott and everyone, but screw it, you’re a huge part of my life.” She peered out at him. “I didn’t tell him anything incriminating about you, I promise. Just that you would have been valedictorian if Lydia hadn’t gotten it, and that you were unbelievably brave, and every bit of deserving of the trust that he’s giving you.” She exhaled. “I think I may have gone overboard, actually, and possibly started to annoy him?” She huffed out a laugh. “I don’t have the slightest clue what I’m doing.”

“Well, you’re dating.” Stiles murmured. “You go have something to eat and you talk about things, and sometimes there’s kissing and sometimes there’s sex.” 

There was a shrill noise in the hotel room, and Allison realized it was coming from her own throat. “Oh, oh god.” She sputtered. “I don’t - I don’t think that’s - I can’t think about that right now.” She came back in the room, fully dressed and red in the face, though she was smiling. “That’s a long way off.”

“Well, look at it this way. You don’t have to worry about things being awkward because you’ve already done it, so you know what you’re doing.” Stiles pointed out. 

“Yeah, but…” Allison made a face. “It was with Scott. And Jackson. Two guys who are well within my age range.” She paused, and sighed. “I’ve never dated anyone with a significant age difference between us. In fact, I’m usually the older one.” She snorted. 

“I’ve never had sex.” Stiles said bluntly. “So I really don’t get what you’re complaining about.” He shrugged. “I’m just saying that when, or if, that time comes for me, I’m probably not going to waste time worrying about whether or not it’s too soon.” 

Allison stared at him, hating the sudden feelings of anger - or jealousy? Jesus, Stiles wasn’t even dating anyone - that had reared their head when Stiles had spoken. She didn’t want to think about him having sex - not because he was Stiles, and she didn’t want to imagine him having sex with anyone, but because the thought of someone giving him his first time, someone new and entrancing and probably tall and gorgeous, made her want to punch a wall. She kept a tight lid on that reaction, despite what the realization of it meant for her; and anyway, it didn’t matter. Stiles wasn’t interested in her. If he was, she didn’t think he’d have encouraged her to look at Calloway twice. Instead, she smiled tightly and said, “That’s fair. That’s not - I just don’t think I’m ready, quite yet.”

“Well, today, we’re going to actually go stop criminals and make the world a little bit better, and that’s awesome, so let’s just focus on that.” Stiles grinned. 

Allison huffed out a soft laugh and the smile on her face became much more genuine. “That sounds like a really good plan.” She told him. “Let’s go.”

***

Six angry people with silver cuffs locked around their wrists and ankles were loaded into a transport van, and Stiles smiled proudly as he looked around for Allison. It had gone just about as expected, and he was going to need a couple of ice packs and a day of rest before he could even think about Disney World, but he knew that they were on their way to having great careers. During the flight from D.C., Calloway had explained it to them. They would still have to attend their classes, but they were on the clock and getting paid for their training, since they were already working. Instructions for clothing they would be expected to wear had been emailed to both of them, and Stiles was dreading the moment when he got home and had to go shopping. But that was the worst aspect of his life, if he ignored Allison’s lack of interest, so he figured it was okay. 

Allison pushed her way through the crowd of people milling around until she found Stiles, and then stood in front of him, beaming. “We’re awesome.” She declared, and then let out a laugh. “I mean, we’re _really_ freaking awesome.” She stumbled forward and hugged him. 

Stiles laughed and hugged her back. He realized another thing he had been ignoring, and he bit his lip, fighting back a pout at himself for what he was about to do. “Hey, Calloway got time off, right? Like, the same amount that we did?” 

Allison blinked at him, pulling back a little so that she could see his face. “Um… yes? He had to have requested it that way, maybe, since he’s our instructor? Why?”

“Because I think I might go home and you two can spend more time, getting to know each other.” Stiles suggested. “Besides, I have a lot of clothes I have to buy, to look professional. I might even drop in on Lydia and make her help me. And Scott made me a profile online, last night. For dating. So I could look into that, too.” 

“What?” Allison stared at him, dumbfounded. “No. Don’t go home. Look at your profile thing from here, but you’re not getting out of coming to Disney with me, mister.” She squeezed him. “We did this together, we deserve to enjoy the results together, too. Calloway will understand.” She scrunched her nose up at him. “Besides, we’re only ‘dating.’ That doesn’t warrant ‘trip together to Disney.’”

“Okay.” Stiles agreed. “But then you’re helping me shop, when we get home.” He got his phone out of his pocket and checked his email, surprised to see eighteen responses to his profile. He deleted three right away, because they looked like they had come from bots. 

“Of course I will.” Allison told him, nodding. She watched him silently for a moment. “Are those, you know… dating site things?” She asked hesitantly. 

“Yeah.” Stiles glanced up at her. “A few more than I expected, but I already figured out that three of them weren’t from actual people, so that means probably at least one more will be. I told Scott I’d be lucky to even get any responses and he said I’d end up with an overloaded mailbox, so... we were both wrong.” 

Allison smiled crookedly at him. “It’s a pretty good medium, though, right?” She bit her lower lip. “I mean… that’s pretty - how many did you get, anyway?”

“Fifteen.” Stiles shrugged. “Is that good or bad?”

“I don’t really know.” Allison admitted. “I’ve never signed up for a dating site before. But you signed up last night? I think that’s really good.” She made an effort to look encouraging, smiling at him. Just because he didn’t want her didn’t mean that she should discourage him from looking at other people who did, as much as it sucked. 

“Yeah, except now I have a decision to make.” Stiles pointed out. “I would hope someone gave me a chance, so if I don’t go on at least one date with everyone who shows interest, I’m a hypocritical dick. I can live with that. Maybe.”

“Stiles…” Allison focused on him completely, her brows drawing together, biting on her lower lip. “You know people better than anyone else I know. You’ve got that… thing, that gift, where you can look at someone and immediately know that they’re up to no good. You _don’t_ have to go out with everyone that contacts you, not if you get bad vibes off of them. Even just… emailing with them back and forth would give you enough information to know if you should give them a chance or not, right? I don’t think it means you’re a hypocritical dick. I think it means you’re smart and watching out for yourself, like you should.”

“That’s true.” Stiles nodded. “Sorry. I think my ears are still ringing a little.” He grinned. 

Allison laughed, her forehead dropping toward his shoulder and nudging it lightly before she lifted it up again and leaned against his side. “Right.” She grinned back. “So! Disney!” Her eyes brightened in excitement. “What should we do first, when we get there?”

“Epcot.” Stiles said instantly. He had been researching the park since he and Allison made a deal with Calloway. “And then other stuff, after.” 

Allison’s eyes grew large, and she bounced in place, clinging to his arm. “Yes! Epcot all the way. And then the big tree with the animal carvings on it?” She looked up at him pleadingly. She couldn’t quite pull off her step-brother’s puppy eyes, but she could damn well do her best. 

Stiles laughed. “I’m planning on us going everywhere in the park, so you don’t have to beg me.” He thought about making a crude comment, but he decided not to. Allison wasn’t Scott, and the situation with them was a lot different than him being an obnoxious high school student. Or so he liked to believe, at least. 

Allison grinned. “Good. I’m terrible at begging.” She tucked herself against his side, tugging his arm over her shoulder. “Do you think we should just go to the room and pack up tonight? I just want to be there, I’m so excited.”

“Yeah, I think that’s a good plan.” Stiles agreed. “But don’t you want to talk to Calloway and see what he’s doing?” 

Allison blinked at him. “Oh… yeah, I guess I should.” She felt a little embarrassed. The thought hadn’t even occurred to her to talk to Calloway. She didn’t think that boded too well for their future… aside from the interest she was harboring for Stiles, of course. “Well… I should go find him, then.”

“I’ll see you back at the hotel. Or the other hotel, if you end up running late and want me to just pack your stuff for you and bring it there.” Stiles offered. 

Allison smiled softly at him. “Hopefully I’ll see you at the hotel.” She told him. “If I do end up running late, I’ll text you, but hopefully I won’t.” She squeezed his arm, and then darted forward before she could lose her nerve, pressing a light kiss to his cheek. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Stiles nodded to Allison, getting into a cab once he was certain that he and Allison were free to leave. He smiled to himself, then sent Scott a text. He wanted to talk about Allison kissing his cheek, but he changed his mind and sent something else, instead. ‘Fifteen responses.’ 

‘Dude, that’s awesome!’ Scott replied immediately. ‘Have you looked at any of the matches yet?’

‘Not yet, but I’m going to start sending out responses in a little bit. I’m packing right now to go somewhere else, but I think I’ll have time tonight.’ Stiles got money out of his wallet for the cab ride. 

‘Awesome. Don’t respond to everyone all at once, try to stagger it out. I feel like that’d be better than you responding to one person after the other after the other, you know?’ Scott texted back. 

‘Really? Because I thought I’d just respond to everyone and see if I can get conversations going before I make any dates.’ Stiles paid the driver and got out of the cab, going to the hotel room and hurriedly packing his suitcase. 

‘Oh. Well, that sounds like a better idea.’ Scott admitted. ‘Alright, maybe don’t listen to me on this one. I’ve never done the online dating thing, and I’ve been in three relationships in the last two and a half years, so… I’m gonna tell you to go with your gut.’

Stiles smiled to himself. ‘I just want to find a way to fill my time when Ally’s out, and sitting at home and watching tv doesn’t sound like the best use of that time.’ He sent a second text to the woman in question. ‘I’m packed. How long until you’re here?’ 

‘Five minutes. I hope. I’m in the cab right now, and the hotel is coming up but this cab driver is so SLOW.’ Allison responded. 

‘Fair enough.’ Scott replied to Stiles. ‘And I agree with that. Get out, enjoy yourself, do your thing and be happy.’

‘Packing your stuff.’ Stiles told Allison, then went back to Scott’s text. ‘Be young, have fun, drink... soda?’ He teased. 

‘Soda? Beer, dude. Always beer.’ Scott teased back. 

‘You’re the best!’ Allison texted back. Ten minutes later and looking harried and annoyed, Allison pushed open the door to the hotel room, sulking. “Stupid driver. I thought they loved going fast. I ended up with the one cab driver in Florida that drives ten miles under the speed limit.”

‘Actively trying not to drink because getting busted for it is not my idea of fun and could also prevent me from having a career.’ Stiles hit send and looked up at Allison from where he was sitting on the bed, both of their suitcases packed. “Just check and make sure I didn’t forget any of your stuff, and then we can leave.” 

Allison nodded and searched through the hotel room for anything she or Stiles may have missed. 

Scott texted back. ‘Yeah, that’s… that’s not a good idea. Okay, yeah, stick to soda.’

‘I’ll get hammered when I’m legal to make up for it.’ Stiles added a smiley face and hit send, then looked around for Allison as he arranged for a cab for their ride to the other hotel. 

Allison hurried back into the main room of the hotel room, carrying her purse and throwing her hair back into a high ponytail. She caught Stiles’ eye and smiled at him. “Let’s go!”

Stiles grinned back at her and picked up his suitcase, shoving his phone into his pocket. “Our cab is on the way and probably won’t get to the front doors before we do.” 

“Oh.” Allison snorted. “Well, still. I’d rather be early and waiting for it than testing the driver.” She scrunched her nose up at him playfully, picking up her luggage. 

Stiles led the way to the elevator. “I already booked a hotel room for us. I thought about booking two, but then I figured that Calloway will have his own if he’s coming, and that would probably be the only reason you’d want privacy, and he’d give you that, anyway?” 

Allison hummed. “Yeah, probably. But that would be sort of difficult for him to do that for me, since he’s on his way back to D.C.” She shrugged. “He said he had some work to follow up on, regarding our bust.” She couldn’t contain the grin on her face at the words, still a little unable to believe that she and Stiles had actually caught their first criminals.

Stiles grinned back at her. “Okay. In that case? I got a suite with a kitchen and dining area, and a separate bedroom. I figured that we’re going to be paying a ton for food and everything, but that we could still use the kitchen, too? And if we don’t, that’s okay.” 

“I love that idea.” Allison told him, nodding rapidly. “We get to keep doing our nightly routine even while we’re on vacation.”

“And since Scott put the idea in my head, maybe we can convince someone to buy us alcohol.” Stiles shrugged. “But I'm kind of saving my underage drinking for when I’m back in Beacon Hills.” 

Allison laughed. “It would be good to drink there, with everyone else close by. I miss them.” She paused, pursing her lips. “Even Derek’s ragtag group of vicious puppies with bad teeth.”

“Don’t talk shit about Erica.” Stiles warned. “She’s like the younger sister I never would’ve even asked for.” He shrugged. “Which should technically be Lydia’s title. But whatever.” 

Allison sighed. “Okay, I won’t talk shit about her. But it’s not like we’re ever going to get along. She doesn’t like me or respect me, and - I mean, I never really gave her reason to, so I get it. We’re just never going to be friends.”

“Well, not if you keep believing that you won’t.” Stiles pointed out. “But it’s okay. I can’t stand Isaac.” 

Allison looked amused. “I know you can’t. You can’t go five minutes in each others’ presence without harping at each other.”

“He’s a dick.” Stiles put his hand on Allison’s arm, leading her over to the cab that pulled up. “And he acts like he’s godlike.” 

“Wh - godlike?” Allison asked curiously, following Stiles easily. “Why, because he has wolfy powers and he didn’t before?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? I didn’t really talk to him, before he met Derek.” Stiles mused. “I think it’s more that he’s just an asshole.” He opened the back door of the cab for her, taking her suitcase to put it in the trunk.

“Thank you.” Allison murmured, smiling faintly as she slid into the cab. “You’re right, he is kind of an asshole.”

Stiles sat down beside her and pulled the door shut, giving the other hotel’s address to their driver as he fastened his seatbelt. He grinned at Allison. “First thing tomorrow, we’ll be at Epcot Center.” 

Allison nodded in excitement. “Absolutely. I can’t wait to see it. I know Disneyland is in California, but that’s one thing. Going to the original is something entirely different, and I’m really a lot more excited to be there.”

Stiles hesitated for a few minutes, then took a deep breath. “Are you okay that Calloway isn’t with us?” 

Allison turned to look at him, her eyes soft. “Yeah.” She murmured. “I’m okay. He’s… if there’s anything there between us, I don’t want to rush it. I barely know him as a person, and only partly know him as my teacher.” She exhaled. “Besides, I would much rather do this with just the two of us. It wouldn’t be fair for me to come to Disney with Calloway, and then spend more time taking in the sights instead of getting to know him.” She poked him gently, smiling. “You, I already know, so we don’t have that problem.”

“You could do both. Get to know him while you explore the park.” Stiles murmured. “I mean, if he was here, you could.” 

Allison hummed again. “Yeah. But it’s okay.” She murmured, smiling. 

“Okay.” Stiles remembered his emails and grabbed his phone to read over them. He deleted another three instead of responding, since they just didn’t seem like the kind of person he was looking for. He ignored the inner voice telling him that Allison was sitting beside him and that he didn’t have to look very far. Instead, he sent simple responses to the remaining twelve people, only saying that he was a college student who didn’t have much free time. He answered questions that some of them asked, not feeling too shy to tell them what they wanted to know. 

Allison watched silently, staring out the window occasionally before looking back at Stiles. “Anyone interesting?” She asked softly. 

“Actually, yeah. There are about five of them that I have a real interest in.” Stiles admitted. “But one in particular is a lot like me. Her dad was in law enforcement and her mom’s not around. She’s looking to have a law enforcement career of her own, too.” 

Allison swallowed thickly, pasting a smile on her face. “That’s great.” She murmured. “She sounds like you’d have a lot in common with her.”

“Yeah, but you know... I thought I had a lot in common with Lydia, too. That really turned out differently than I expected.” Stiles shrugged. He glanced up when he saw a sign for their hotel. “We’re almost there.” 

Allison followed his gaze and smiled. “Yay!” She blurted, looking delighted. She reached out, grabbing Stiles’ hand and squeezing tightly. “Oh my god, I’m shaking.” She laughed. “This feels incredible.”

“I think we might as well enjoy it. Every bit of it.” Stiles grinned. “Because we don’t know when we’ll get another vacation. I was kind of counting on Thanksgiving and Christmas, and everything. Spring Break. Oh yeah, Lydia thinks we should all go to Niagara Falls for that. Anyway, if you and I are busy with work, we won’t be able to take many breaks.” 

Allison squinted at him. “Niagara? She knows that’s for couples, right?” She shook her head. “Well, the thing about work is certainly true. So yeah, I’m _definitely_ going to enjoy this.”

“I told her the same thing. Well, no. I told Scott. I said it was fine for him and Malia, but the rest of us...” Stiles smiled. “I guess by then, we’ll have other people in our lives, right? It’s in March. We have five months.” 

“Maybe.” Allison murmured. “But… I mean, I’m not going to say no to seeing a massive waterfall whether I’m dating someone or not.” She laughed, shrugging. 

“Yeah, it could be interesting. I don’t get how ‘giant waterfall’ equals romance, anyway. But I’ve never dated anyone.” Stiles snorted. He got out when the driver stopped, paying him and getting their suitcases. 

“I mean, to be honest, I don’t really know how it does, either.” Allison pointed out. “And I _have_ dated, so… I don’t know. I guess it’s just what Lydia thinks we should do, and she’s got her mind set to it, I’m guessing.”

“She always does.” Stiles smiled. “I’ll go check in and get the keys, if you want to wait near the elevator with the suitcases?” 

“Of course.” Allison murmured, smiling back at him. She grabbed the luggage and dragged it over to the elevator before turning around, her eyes tracking Stiles intently.

Stiles glanced over his shoulder at Allison, then grabbed their room keys and walked through the lobby to join her.

“Everything good?” Allison asked, turning to press the button on the elevator for them. 

“Yeah. I ordered us a couple of salads and cheeseburgers, so that everything will be delivered by the time we unpack.” Stiles smiled. 

Allison smiled back. “You’re the best.” She told him, leaning into him and brushing her shoulder gently against his. 

Stiles needed to remind himself again that this was his friend. His friend who could easily murder him and now had a lot of knowledge about how to cover her tracks. She was dating someone and he needed to think about something else. “Do you like baseball?”

Allison had to think about it, feeling a little thrown off by the question. “Oh… uh, I don’t really know a lot about it.” She admitted.

“Oh. Okay. I know you like archery and you kind of like lacrosse, right? Any other sports?” Stiles laughed. “I’m kind of surprised we haven’t talked about this yet.” 

Allison laughed a little. “Well, I’d be willing to listen, and you know, make an effort to understand baseball. But I don’t really follow many others. I mean… swimming. Bowling, but I think lacrosse had more to do with Scott at the time, and everything else has just been really, um… convenient, I think? Not convenient, but um…” She wrinkled her nose. “I can’t think of words right now.” She sputtered out a nervous laugh, looking up at Stiles.

Stiles smiled, ushering her into the elevator when the doors finally opened. “Okay. Baseball season is over, anyway. But it’s football season. So we can start there.” 

“Okay.” Allison all but whispered, leaning into his touch as they entered the elevator. She couldn’t help turning to stare up at him, trying in vain to calm down what _had_ to be the most besotted expression she’d ever had in her face. “Explain away.”

Stiles put his arm around her shoulders and glanced up at the LED numbers above the doors, before he spoke again. “Well, you don’t have to have a favorite team, first of all. A lot of people tend to go local, but I don’t like any of the California teams. I like football in general, but if I had to pick a favorite team...” He paused, thinking as he looked up at the numbers again. “I don’t think I have one.” He laughed. “Seahawks are pretty good. I mostly just watch because the plays are exciting. There’s more of a variable than baseball, with everyone running all over the field. I don’t like basketball, though. Which is sort of... the same concept? With the running. But for some reason, it’s just never interested me.” 

Allison had never thought she’d be so interested in hearing about sports. “That’s… yeah, I can’t imagine it would really catch your attention.” She murmured, burrowing a little more beneath his arm and surrounding herself with him as much as she could. “Maybe… maybe there’ll be a football game while we’re in town.” She stared at him. “And we could go?”

“I’d love that.” Stiles murmured. He guided her along with him, off of the elevator, and down the hall to their room. He unlocked the door and set his suitcase down, rubbing his bicep in relief. “If I wasn’t really hungry right now, I’d probably just go straight to...” He paused, blinking and walking through the room, into the bedroom of the suite. “Um. Okay, there’s only one bed. So... does the couch have a pull-out?” 

Allison was staring at the bed from the doorway, blinking slowly. “Uh. I don’t… I don’t know. Maybe? I wasn’t paying attention when we walked in.” She admitted. ‘ _Too busy focusing on you,_ ’ she added silently. 

“Okay. I’ll go downstairs and tell them that we can’t stay here.” Stiles frowned, walking over to his suitcase and picking it up. “But I think we should maybe call down, first? Because I don’t want them to bring the food to the wrong room.” 

“That’s probably a good idea.” Allison replied, slowly dragging her gaze away from the bed. “Um… I can call down, if you want to sit for a few minutes?”

“Yeah.” Stiles set his suitcase back down and sat in a chair, groaning and leaning back a little as he squirmed, trying to get more comfortable. 

Allison smiled faintly, and she reached for the hotel phone, dialing down to the front desk. Her eyes flicked over Stiles as she waited for someone to answer, then determinedly shut her eyes with a sigh. 

Stiles yawned and closed his eyes, his head tilting back before he fell asleep. 

It was several minutes before Allison even noticed. She felt flustered and uncertain as she got off of the phone with the front desk. Apparently the room assignment had not been a mistake - the room that Stiles had originally booked for them had been given away by another desk associate by accident, and so to cover the mistake, the hotel manager had - Well, he’d used the term ‘upgraded.’ She opened her mouth to tell Stiles, and then noticed that he was asleep. Silently, she let out a soft coo, then blinked and shook her head, standing up to move to his side. She hesitated an instant before she reached out to touch his shoulder, then sighed and drew back. He looked so exhausted, and she didn’t have the heart to wake him in order to tell him the news. She’d have to figure out another way, or at least wait until later. But, she cringed, she definitely didn’t want to let him keep sleeping in the chair. There was no way that was going to be comfortable. She dithered for several minutes, thinking about calling back down to the desk and demanding another room assignment, and her eyes drifted once more to the bed - the fairly large bed, the bed that could very easily hold the both of them without either one of them ever touching at all. She rubbed a hand over her face, and then sighed, leaning forward and holding her head in her hands. “The universe is out to get me.” She muttered. 

Stiles jolted awake when there was a knock on the door, and he stood up quickly, giving Allison a curious look as he moved past her, running a hand over his face. “Sorry.” He called over his shoulder. 

“It’s okay.” Allison called back, though her heart was pounding a little from the sudden way he’d woken up. At least she didn’t have to worry about waking him now. Clearing her throat, she called, “Uh, hey, Stiles?”

Stiles carried a tray into the room and set it on the kitchen counter. “Yeah?”

Allison looked at him steadily. “I just got off the phone a little bit ago with the front desk. They… gave us this room on purpose. Apparently, someone else gave the room you booked for us to another couple, and the manager basically hocked this one at us as an apology, or as a bribe not to complain, or something.”

“Even though there’s just the one bed?” Stiles took a deep breath. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“The hell you will.” Allison told him, her voice flat. “You’ll wake up absolutely miserable. Look, this…” she sighed. “The bed is big enough. We can both take it. We probably won’t even roll into each other, it’s so huge.”

Stiles’ mind wandered for a moment, thinking of what it would be like to roll around in the bed with Allison. “Uh, yeah. If it happens, just... sorry in advance.”

Allison huffed out a laugh. “If it happens, it happens. We’re supposed to be adults now, right? We’re grown ups. We can deal with this shit without it being awkward.” She stood up and moved toward him. “Now. What kind of burger did you get me?”

“Medium rare, with pepperjack cheese and no lettuce.” Stiles recited, used to her food orders. “If you want mine instead, you can have it. I got extra onions and gouda on mine.”

“We could cut them in half?” Allison suggested. “That way I can try yours without inhaling the whole thing and you won’t have to give up your food to a black hole.” She grinned. 

Stiles laughed. “Okay.” He agreed. “Find something on tv while I make coffee and cut the burgers?”

“Sure.” Allison replied, and moved toward the table, sitting down on one side before she turned on the tv and began flipping through channels. She eventually settled on a cable network that was airing a Terminator marathon and sat back to watch and wait. 

Stiles carried two plates over to the coffee table and set them down, then went back for cups of coffee. He sat beside Allison and grinned at her. “I hope we never have to deal with one of those.” He nodded toward the tv. 

Allison snorted, grinning back at him. “Well, if we ever do, we’ve got an idea about how to take them out, thanks to these movies.” She pointed out. “As a matter of fact, thanks to a lot of eighties movies, we’re pretty much prepared for life.”

Stiles laughed. “Yeah, everything except Revenge of the Nerds. That whole rape thing wasn’t funny.” 

“God, no,” Allison agreed. “That’s just wrong.”

“And now that I made the conversation awkward...” Stiles muttered. “What else can we talk about? Politics? Religion? Masturbation?” 

Allison grinned. “Well, if that’s really what you want to talk about, I’m game.” She teased him.

“What would you do if I was serious, though?” Stiles smirked. “I mean, it’s pretty personal stuff, right? Talking about techniques for... prayer.” 

“Sure, we can call it that.” Allison smiled back slowly. “And I’m guessing we would talk about it. It’s personal, yeah, but… well, we live together and we see each other in situations that most friends don’t really see each other in, so I don’t think there’s anything too personal that we couldn’t discuss with each other.”

“You actually want to talk about masturbating.” Stiles remarked. “Okay... what do you want to discuss, exactly?” 

Allison chewed her lower lip, thinking silently, and then hesitantly said, “Do you, um… make yourself wait? You know… for the payoff?”

“Sometimes.” Stiles admitted. “Mostly, I’m kind of in a hurry, because I have other things to do.” He turned toward her. “What about you?” 

Allison huffed, looking down with a faint smile. “I’m usually too tense to be anything but impatient.” She told him. “So I guess I get how you’re feeling in that regard. I kind of wish that I could show a little restraint, though.”

“Well, we’re not really doing anything, this week.” Stiles pointed out. “So I mean, if you wanted to wait another day for Epcot and just spend tomorrow... uh, restraining yourself...” He laughed. “You could.” 

Allison’s lips twitched. “Honestly I’m having trouble restraining myself now.” She admitted. She blinked. “When it comes to Epcot, I mean.”

“Is this like that woman who married the Eiffel Tower?” Stiles teased. “Because I have to tell you, there’s not really anything phallic about the shape of Epcot Center. And I don’t know the word for ‘resembling a breast.’” 

Allison tilted her head. “Mammorial?” She suggested, unable to contain her giggling. 

Stiles snorted. “I probably shouldn’t be as comfortable in this conversation as I am. But I am, because Scott and I always talked about this sort of thing, too. And then there was the time that I told Finstock point-blank that I’d jerked off twice in one day.” 

Allison’s eyes widened and she sputtered out a laugh. “No, you didn’t.” She blurted. “What did he say to you?”

“He said something about me playing on the field instead of playing with myself and I told him I’d done it twice, and he just kind of stared at me like he wanted to kill me, but that wasn’t anything new.” Stiles laughed. “It actually helps with the ADHD, too.” 

“That’s… actually surprisingly informative.” Allison said, raising her eyebrows. “I wonder if anyone else has ever suggested self-love as a way to combat ADHD. In a legitimate way, obviously.”

“Well, I found out about it as an option, online.” Stiles smiled. “I really do research everything.” He picked up one of the halves of burger he had on his plate, biting into it. 

Allison watched him and then blinked, suddenly reminded of the burger halves she had in front of her. She reached down to pick a half up and took a bite, savoring it with closed eyes and a low hum.

Stiles kept his gaze on the tv, determined not to react to Allison. He grabbed his phone instead, and looked for responses to the emails he had sent. It had barely been an hour, but he needed to distract himself, somehow. 

Allison’s gaze caught on Stiles as he searched his phone, and she looked away, grimacing. She knew it wasn’t true, but part of her kept wondering if she was really that boring, if her presence left him wanting more of… anything. Her shoulders slumped a little and she sighed, taking another bite of her burger and staring blankly at the tv.

Stiles glanced up at her as he set his phone down. “I wasn’t...” He frowned. “I wasn’t trying to ignore you. We were talking about masturbating and that made me think about sex, so I thought I’d see if anyone replied to me. I can’t exactly have it by myself.” He remarked, smiling crookedly. 

Allison smiled back weakly. “Right, of course. What’s that old stupid saying? ‘It takes two to mambo’ or whatever?”

“Tango.” Stiles laughed. “But yeah, same principle.” 

With a grin and a shrug, Allison turned her attention back to her burger, taking another large bite. She wondered silently if she should just call Calloway and see how he was, the way a good girlfriend would - until she remembered that he was heading for the airport and was probably on his plane heading back to D.C.

“Maybe I should go shopping for things.” Stiles muttered, wishing someone would respond to his emails. “I wonder if Disney World has some kind of adult store that’s hidden somewhere.” 

Stiles’ phone went off, and Allison raised her head as she recognized the sound of his email notifications. “We could look for one.” She murmured, staring at the tiny electronic device. “We could ask the actors dressed as Disney characters. If anyone would know, they would.”

Stiles laughed. “It would be hilarious too, if I ended up losing my virginity to like, Cinderella. Or Gaston. I’m not picky.” 

“Gaston would be interesting.” Allison murmured. “Are you going to look at your email? It sounds like you got something.” The notification went off again. “Some _things_.”

“Yeah.” Stiles picked his phone up again and checked his email. He grimaced as a picture loaded and the woman in the photo was naked. “Okay, that’s just desperate.” He angled the phone to show Allison. “I’m just going to delete this and block her from emailing me again.” 

Allison made a face, feeling more than a little disgusted. “I don’t get people who do that. I don’t understand why that’s… ugh.” She shook her head. “It’d be one thing if it was someone you know, someone you were with, and it was intimate photos, but jesus christ.”

“Yeah.” Stiles went about blocking the offensive woman and deleting the email from her. He opened a new email from ‘rozrazil_cogadh’, the woman who had a lot in common with him. 

Allison resisted the urge to lean over and look at the email he’d received, though she very badly wanted to. “Someone new?” She asked softly.

“No, this is the daughter of the cop, I was telling you about in the cab.” Stiles explained. He fell silent, reading over the email from her. 

‘Hey! I was glad to hear from you. I kind of thought I wouldn’t; that’s not to say anything disparaging about you, it’s just that since I’ve joined this site, I’ve gotten a lot of creepers, and I don’t know about you but I’ve started pretty much systematically deleting everything suspicious. Anyway. How are you? I noticed that your profile said that you moved across the country for school. Where are you from originally? (I promise, there are no plans to stalk you, I’m just… well, I inherited my inquisitive nature and my investigative genes from my dad and I kind of need to know everything about a person. If it feels like I’m giving you the third degree, just tell me to back off.) I’m originally from California. Neptune. Not the planet, I mean, Neptune, California. I don’t know why I’m correcting myself instead of just deleting that sentence and pretending it never happened. Um… tag, you’re it! :D’

Stiles laughed to himself and started writing a response. ‘I know what you mean about the creepers, just blocked someone for sending me a naked photo. Haven’t even had a first date, so that was a bit much. I’m from NorCal. Beacon Hills. Do you mind telling me what you’re studying and what college?’ He sent the email and set his phone down, then started eating again. “I’m pretty sure she just said the same stuff I already knew about her, but I decided not to call her out on it. If it happens again though, I’m just going to give up.” 

Allison reached out and gently patted his knee, reaching for the last bite of her first burger half and chewing it silently. Her hand shot out to grab the second half, and she shoved another bite in her mouth after she’d swallowed the other one. She didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t make her sound petty and childish, so she figured that keeping her mouth full of food was a decent alternative.

‘Oh, ah… I actually don’t think I can tell you? Not that I don’t want to, but… well. I’m in a program for… criminal justice, let’s say. And let’s also say that I’m probably not allowed to go bleating around and announcing who I’m studying with and what I’m studying for.’

Stiles burst out laughing. ‘Okay, I understand. Well, if you want to take a break from studying in about a week, I’ll be back in town.’ 

‘Sounds great! We could go to Compass Coffee around, say, noon next Wednesday?’

‘I’ll see you then.’ Stiles agreed. He was relieved that he would already be at lunch and wouldn’t have to explain himself. 

‘Can’t wait to meet you in person! I’ll talk to you later!’

Stiles turned toward Allison. “I have a coffee date at noon, next Wednesday.”

Allison looked back at him and smiled brightly. “That’s great!” She blurted.

“Thanks.” Stiles murmured. “Shit. If we need to start dressing like we’re pros at this, I’m going to have to figure out how to make myself look like a college student, without having someone bitch at me.” 

“You could carry a cardigan or something with you?” Allison suggested, poking at her fries. “So that way if they start making you wear suit jackets and pressed, collared shirts, all you’d have to do is take off the jacket and put the sweater on.” She thought for a moment, and then grimaced. “I don’t really have a suggestion for the shoes and pants.” She admitted.

“Is it overkill to change, get to the coffee shop, have a cup of coffee, run back and change again? I feel like I’m a sitcom character.” Stiles snorted. 

Allison’s lips twitched. “It might be a little bit of overkill.” She replied. “Maybe they’ll let you get away with wearing your plaid if you tell them you’d rather wear plainclothes like you’re undercover.”

“Well, we do still have classes...” Stiles shrugged. “I think all I’m going to do right now is brush my teeth and go back to sleep.” 

“Mm.” Allison nodded slowly. “That sounds like a plan. My limbs feel really heavy right now.” She stared at the french fries for a moment longer, and then finished the last bit of her burger before standing up and picking up the plate, taking it to the fridge. “I’ll save them and heat them up later. Do you still want yours?”

“I ate mine.” Stiles finished his coffee and carried his plate and cup to the sink, rinsing them and setting them aside. He grabbed his suitcase, unpacking and carrying his toothbrush into the bathroom to brush his teeth. He changed into his pajamas and climbed into bed, sighing contentedly at how comfortable the bed was. “When we can afford it, maybe we should move into a nicer apartment. Or at least get better beds for the one we have.” 

Allison followed her own nighttime routine, smiling faintly. “That comfortable, huh?” She murmured, stepping out of the bathroom and rubbing slightly at her eyes. She moved toward the bed when she stopped, and then slid into the other side, curling up on her right and looking at Stiles. “... Okay, you’re right. This bed rocks. We should definitely at least get new ones.”

Stiles nodded. “I’ll ask them at the front desk what kind of bed this is.” He yawned. “Good night, Ally.” 

Allison’s eyes stayed on him, gentle and wistful. “Good night, Stiles.” She said softly.


End file.
